


The Carrion Suite

by bitterbullet



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: BAMF!John, Bad Puns, Dark Humor, Disturbing Themes, Gore, Horror, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Necromancy, Nightmares, Sherlock didn't see THIS coming, Supernatural Elements, Zombies, except for when it kind of is, little bit of H/C, nowhere near as serious as the tags make it sound
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-10-23
Updated: 2014-06-25
Packaged: 2017-11-16 22:17:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 33,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/544446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bitterbullet/pseuds/bitterbullet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Watson is a medical man, and a military man, practical and skeptical. He barely holds an agnostic approach to religious faith. He has not a superstitious bone in his body.</p><p>So when crows begin stalking him and Sherlock takes a case involving mysterious sigils branded into the flesh of murder victims, John doesn't panic. He saves that for when the bodies start talking back to him.</p><p>(Set vaguely during s2, pre-Reichenbach)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Patience (or: This Boringest of Days)

**Author's Note:**

> The only bits I own are the unique world-building things, and the rest is totally disclaimed.
> 
> I don't currently have a beta or a Brit-picker, but I've done my best to catch the flubs and such. If any of you lovely readers out there notice anything glaring, please do point it out. :D

Crows were not uncommon in London, John reminded himself as he peered out through the window beside his desk at the seven soot-black birds clustered on a telephone pole directly across from him. They'd been there all morning. Certainly, that wasn't ominous. Neither was the fact that they'd been increasing in number. Nor did he find it unnerving that they all seemed to be staring back at him with single-minded focus.

He was a medical man, and a military man, practical and skeptical. He barely held an agnostic approach to religious faith. He had not a superstitious bone in his body.

So why was there a tense knot forming between his shoulderblades? 

John glanced over his shoulder for distraction. Sherlock sprawled across the couch in his dressing gown and sulked like every disconsolate teenager in the universe, one arm cast over his eyes in a dramatic spill of blue silk. His t-shirt had rucked up a bit around his midriff, baring a stark white strip of skin above the waistband of his pyjama bottoms. John swallowed once and (perhaps not-so-)quickly looked down at his desk again.

That had been a little _too_ distracting, for reasons he refused to examine.

His blog was open and blank on his laptop screen, and not much distraction from his distraction. In lieu of a recent case or a new girlfriend, he didn't know what to say that wasn't a whole lot of complaining about his flatmate's noisome day-to-day habits. Knowing his blog had such a wide readership these days made him think twice about using it for everyday whinging. Plus it would only leave him open to more 'old married couple' comments from the peanut gallery.

At the same time, he really wanted to vent. Sherlock had been unbearable of late. There had been no call from Lestrade in two weeks. He had been complaining of terminal boredom for half that time, and rejecting every case John's blog attracted as too hatefully dull to even listen to. The trouble was, a bored Sherlock meant a Sherlock with _projects_.

It almost reminded John of stereotypical spinster aunts who always have something to keep busy, only instead of baking and cross-stitch there was the question of what happens to various sorts of materials when exposed to a blowtorch, and instead of knitting and crochet beside the fireplace there were pathology and toxicology experiments on the kitchen table.

It should have been less conducive to a domestic atmosphere, but after months of this from Sherlock, John was more or less immune to the weirdness. (But not the strains of salmonella incubating on the kitchen table under a desk lamp.) If anything, Sherlock's spates of violent curiosity and meticulous research let John know that no one was dying too interestingly and all was more or less fine with the world. John would only worry if Sherlock ever _stopped_ putting cadaverous remains in inappropriate storage places.

A connection pinged in his head. With a scowl he stood, stepped to the window, and craned his gaze downwards until his nose nearly mashed against the glass. The outer window ledge held no carcasses or organs or limbs, nor were any bloody parts left dangling from the wrought-iron grille – at least, none that he could see.

Wings fluttered on the edge of his vision, and he looked out across the street again. Now nine pairs of beady, black eyes blinked intently at him. John glared back, not about to let himself be intimidated.

“You won't find it,” Sherlock said, making John half-turn to look at him. He'd dropped his arm and now gave him an assessing look.

“Find what?” John asked cautiously. Whenever Sherlock began conversations with non-sequiturs, it always paid to be cautious.

“The camera. Mycoft's camera. I know my nosy brother's surveillance is irritating, but there's no avoiding it, unfortunately,” Sherlock said. His lip curled as he added petulantly, “I've _tried_.”

“Oh, for the love of –” John stopped, whirling back around and scanning the building opposite with renewed paranoia. He sighed, knowing it was futile. Meanwhile another crow had landed. They were certainly coming in fast all of a sudden. “It figures. Though you calling anyone nosy is a bit of pot and kettle, if you ask me.”

“I didn't,” Sherlock pointed out calmly. “What are you looking at, then? I haven't seen you this bent on gawking since that flash-mob of ginger nudists marched by.”

“You can't hold that against me. I'd never seen such excellent decorating in my life.”

“Decorating.”

“Oh, yeah. That Red-Headed League was all about authenticity. The carpet had to match the drapes.” John would have grinned at his own joke had not two more crows chosen that moment to alight on the increasingly crowded telephone pole.

Sherlock made an undignified sound that was somewhere between a choked bark of laughter and a disgusted grunt, but he offered no rejoinder.

Watson, 1; Holmes, 0.

Smirking now, John once again turned his attention back to the flock outside.

It really was odd the way they all seemed to be staring right at him. Maybe _they_ were Mycroft's cameras? Trained birds with implants, or robotic drones camouflaged as birds? He stopped and scrubbed at his forehead with his fingers. That was ridiculous. Still, what with Baskerville and some other things Mycroft alluded to accidentally-on-purpose, John almost wouldn't put it past the man.

Maybe the birds weren't staring at him, but at something on the glass? A reflection, perhaps?

John crossed to the other sitting room window. The birds migrated – very birdlike, not at all robotic – along the wires until they all sat directly across from his new position, eyes still fixed on him. Only him. And there was... something in their eyes. Not hunger. Something worse; a terrible, sure kind of waiting...

A chill spread cold fingers at the base of his neck and trailed down his spine. Patience, he realized. The patience of a carrion-eater. 

“Hell, what _is_ it, John?” Sherlock snapped, _his_ patience vanished.

Rattled, John stepped away from the window – close to the wall and out of the line of sight – and gestured. He retreated into humor, replying with a deadpan, “A murder in progress.”

Sherlock was at the window in a heartbeat and a gangly flash of bathrobe. John was glad he had the foresight to step aside; his flatmate would have trampled him in his rush. Sherlock then proceeded to perform what John thought of privately as the observation dance. (In its mildest form, it involved a lot of quick, flickering eye motions and minute, bobbing wiggles of his head. It wasn't as bad as that _mind palace_ nonsense Sherlock had started practicing last time a dry spell of this duration had struck, but it was entertaining.)

(And definitely distracting in a mildly not-good way, but he _did_ like watching Sherlock think.)

After mere seconds of scanning the pedestrians on the pavement below, Sherlock's gaze cast upon the crows. There was an utterly priceless blank pause as Sherlock caught on and his brain abruptly switched tracks. His expression knotted into a sour scowl and he turned to glare at John, who commenced giggling.

“A murder,” Sherlock repeated, voice dripping contempt, “in progress.”

“Murder, most _fowl_ ,” John crowed. He laughed harder, a bit giddy and eager to focus on lighter topics.

“In future, please keep your dreadful wordplays confined to your blog,” Sherlock sneered.

“No, don't reckon I will,” John replied through his mirth. He tried to get a grip. “That was the most animated I've seen you in days.”

Sherlock huffed and stared out the window again. “Taking up a new hobby, then?”

“What?”

“Birdwatching. Though I fail to see what is so riveting about them.”

“I'm more interested in what has _them_ so riveted,” John said, his grin fading. Then he told himself he was being ridiculous – they were just birds. Nothing to get spooked over. He stepped up beside his flatmate at the window, peeking at the ledge from this new vantage. “They've been hovering over there all morning. You haven't baited the ledge again, have you?”

“No, I learned all I needed from the first round of experiments,” Sherlock denied easily. He looked from the birds to John. 

Across the room, Sherlock's mobile chimed a new text.

“Are you going to get that?” John asked, once more jumping at the chance to ignore the tension spreading from his shoulders and down into his gut.

“Why bother? It's probably just Mycroft whinging about the low quality of insurgents these days,” Sherlock said. 

“You never know. Maybe it's a case.” Glad for the distraction, John went over to the couch and picked the phone up off the coffee table. “It's from Lestrade.”

“If it's not at least a five, I'm not interested,” Sherlock muttered, staring back out the window.

Rolling his eyes, John opened the message with an attached photo. The picture was of a woman's torso, from just below the breasts to the lower abdomen. From the splatters of blood and the vague suggestion of leaf-covered ground around the body, it was rather apparent this was a crimescene photo, but there was no overt cause of death visible. Instead, the eye was drawn to the wide swath of squiggles etched into the pale, flabby flesh above the victim's bellybuton.

 _Ok, smart guy,_ Lestrade texted, _is this a language or what?_

“Murder and also a possible mystery language,” John explained shortly. He squinted at he alleged writing, but the lines of it weren't in good focus. There was inflammation around the marks, though, harsh black on raw red and milk white. “It looks like it was branded onto the victim before she died.”

Sherlock hummed, thrusting his his hand out expectantly without turning his head from his view of the street. John hesitated, then set the phone down on the coffee table again. “Well, that's dull, isn't it? I suppose I'll just make some tea to keep me entertained on this boringest of days.”

With that, he strode into the kitchen, ignoring Sherlock's annoyed “John!” Still, he didn't actually start making tea, just mucked about with the kettle as he counted internally – Five, four, three, two –

Sherlock swooped through the doorway, ridiculous dressing gown flapping about his storkish legs. “No time for tea, John, there's a case. We need to visit the scene before they have to move the body.”

“So is it a language then?” John asked, completely unsurprised. And very glad to have something to occupy him besides conspiracy theories about birds. People would start to think he'd gone strange.

In the albeit unlikely event that they didn't think so _now_.

Sherlock waved his hand dismissively as he made his way around the cluttered table towards his bedroom. “Inconclusive from the photo. Lestrade has a pathetic excuse for a camera on his mobile.”

“Where's the scene, then?” John moved quickly, throwing sandwich fixings out of the fridge and onto the countertop. Since there was a case, he would grab a bite while he had time. It was that or pay restaurant prices for meals he never got to finish, and that was money he might need for all the cab rides.

“Dunno. Lestrade would, though, so ask him. I have to get dressed.” Sherlock closed his bedroom door.

John made his sandwich first, cold roast beef and swiss on wheat. Then, one-handed while he ate, he texted Lestrade for the address. By the time Sherlock emerged, tugging his enormous coat on and looking sleek and dapper as ever – in part because earlier John had badgered him to shower after three days of listless lounging – John was taking a sip of milk from the carton. Sherlock gave him a look that said _Really, John?_ John responded with furrowed brows and a tilt of his head towards the table. The latest experiment somehow had amassed cultures in every drinking glass in the flat. 

Sherlock sniffed and raised his chin defiantly. “And you wonder why the papers call you a confirmed bachelor.”

“Shut it, boffin,” John retorted without heat and put the milk away.

John's phone chimed with Lestrade's response, the detective always prompt when dealing with Sherlock for fear the man would get bored waiting for details and faff off on some other more interesting tangent.

“'Caledonian Park, in one of the woodsy bits to the south,'” John read aloud.

“I'll get us a cab. Shoes, John,” Sherlock huffed, crossing the kitchen in three strides, and gave the door with a cheerful slam on his way out.

Unable to keep the fond chuckle inside, John hurried to the sitting room to get his shoes. He was tying the last laces when out of the corner of his eye, he saw shadows flutter in the waning, watery afternoon sunlight on the floor next to him. Naked instinct snapped his eyes upward.

A dozen crows clustered in the windows, six on each sill, gleaming eyes peering at him.

John stood slowly, as if there was a gun trained on him. No sudden movements. The still air of the flat grew pregnant, foreboding. For a long moment, nothing happened. Then one of the birds tapped at the glass with its beak, sharp _taptap tap tap_ to shatter the silence.

He glowered and stood at attention. He refused to flinch. Just birds.

Another one began pecking, followed by another, then another, _tap tap taptap taptaptaptaptap_ –

He turned on his heel and took his coat off the hook in the entryway, unwilling to let the truly unnerving cadence rush him along.

The whole flock was pecking the glass, and now throwing their bodies against it, beating it with their wings.

He thrust his arms into his coat. Even as his hand steadied, his heart raced. Drawing deep breaths through his nose, he left the flat and closed the door on the growing cacophony.

 

TBC


	2. Something Wrong (or, Quit Giving Me That Look)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Firstly, I'd like to point out that I forgot to credit the source of the story's title. It comes from the song 'Carrion Suite' by Andrew Bird, which makes delightful mood music for this fic, if instrumental violin floats your boat.
> 
> Secondly, I have to thank my longsuffering RL friends - Tabitha, Kelsey, and Allie - who have been really supportive and tolerant of me babbling to them about this fic and forcing them to read it. They've been lovely and rather a lot of help in brainstorming and such, especially considering none of them are actually involved in this fandom at all. So, thanks for being awesome, guys! XDDD

Sherlock had already climbed into the cab and situated himself, but thoughtfully had left the cab door open for John, waiting against the kerb right outside the door. John fairly leaped from the stoop in his haste to get inside, turning a somewhat frantic eye upwards while he did. Thankfully, no crows dove for his face. He slammed the cab door and tried not to look too relieved as the car pulled away into traffic.

He glanced at Sherlock, but the man was ignoring him in favor of his phone. John could only be grateful. His heartrate hadn't yet slowed to normal, and no doubt he looked on edge. Sherlock, of course, knew all of his tells. He didn't relish explaining his adrenaline reaction over a bunch of birds.

Though that just now, that had been _weird_. John swallowed and stared out at the dreary streets, scowling. 

They'd watched him all morning. They'd waited until he was alone. Then they'd moved in for the kill – or, well, whatever. He had no idea what that display at the windows was about. The point was, they appeared to have strategized the whole thing. He'd heard before that crows were highly intelligent, but surely this was taking things a bit too far. Not to mention that only a few minutes ago, he'd been trying to get away from conspiracy theories about birds, not invent more of them.

Was the whole flock rabid? He'd have to go on the internet and look up rabies symptoms in crows whenever he got back to the flat. And if the winged menaces were still there, he'd call pest control services. (Or, a mischievous corner of his mind suggested, perhaps let Sherlock have some target practice with the gun.)

Even thus resolved, John couldn't shake the feeling he was missing something important. (Not that _that_ was uncommon, given the company he kept.) As if this wasn't some random event, though it had to be. His skin retained the itch of being watched even now, and that tension from earlier was only growing worse, clenching his stomach around the sandwich he was now regretting just a bit.

He was still mulling over the incident when the cab pulled up at the park. For once, Sherlock paid the cabbie and even waited for John to get out and stand next to him before he gave a little grin and started heading into the park. John rolled his eyes at Sherlock's eagerness for this new puzzle but followed dutifully.

They walked in companionable silence, a leaden autumn sky hovering above the nearly nude trees. An anemic breeze rattled shed leaves across the trail and shivered the branches to scatter more. John huddled into his jacket a bit and resisted the urge to sigh. He'd had always liked this park, had even gone for walks here with Jeanette because she liked it too, especially the clocktower. Now he was going to associate it with something gruesome. He mentally ticked it off the list of places he could relax away from Sherlock's influence.

The crime-scene wasn't hard to find, as there were police cars pulled into the park itself, lights flashing around a copse of trees and bushes a ways off the beaten path. There were a handful of police and crime-scene personnel milling about, and from a knot of these emerged Sgt. Sally Donovan, who met them at the yellow-taped boundary.

“Thought you two would turn up for this one,” Donovan said by way of greeting, her eyes narrowed in contempt. Still, she lifted up the tape by way of invitation. “You're welcome to it, freak. It's about as weird as you are.”

“If that's true, I'll have it sorted before tea,” Sherlock replied with perfectly smooth condescension. He was expecting it when she let the tape go in a childish move meant to snap in Sherlock's face, and he caught it in a gloved hand as he slipped underneath. He held it for John and said, “Where's Lestrade?”

“With the body,” she replied shortly, turning on her heel – and John would never understand her penchant for wearing short skirts and high-heels in her line of work, especially in this weather – and stalking away towards the trees.

“She must be off her game,” John commented in an undertone. “Only two insults this time.”

“She's tired. Long night, at least half of it spent in handcuffs,” Sherlock murmured back. “Police issue, not novelty. Idiots, they're nowhere near experienced enough to know how to use them properly. Anderson decided to get adventurous, and she's paying the price for it.” 

“You mean they –,” John stopped and winced. “Oh, _ew_.”

“You just pictured it, didn't you.” It wasn't phrased as a question. He was smirking; John didn't need to look, he could hear it in his voice.

“Your fault. Shut up.” John shook his head as if he could physically dislodge the mental image of his two least favorite 'colleagues' having rough sex. “How did you not?”

“I get a lot of practice at ignoring that sort of thing,” Sherlock responded. “If I didn't, I really think I'd never eat again, not to mention all the time I'd waste deleting all the various vile images.”

John snorted and Sherlock caught his eye, amused. Then he picked up the pace to catch up with their guide, and John had no choice but to follow. The meager mirth in John's throat died as they passed the small crowd of blue-suited investigators, only partially from the tattered remains of his sense of decorum.

One didn't spend years in hospitals and battlefields without gaining at least a practical understanding of collective psychology. Morale was contagious, no two ways about it, though foul moods spread faster than wildfire while spirits had to rise more sedately. But these clusters of no more than three or four, the dour faces, the hushed conversations – all symptoms of uneasiness and anxiety.

These were the same professionals that had dealt with serial killers and mad bombers with equal aplomb. So what was so bad that it would make a bunch of seasoned coppers jumpy?

John frowned and looked to Sherlock to see if the man had noticed the mood of the place. For his part, the detective didn't seem at all fazed, though he did seem more alert – which was saying something, given his general state of being seemed to be hyper-aware. As if to demonstrate this, Sherlock turned to meet John's gaze with a question in his eyes, _Something wrong?_ John answered with a shrug, _Not really, no._

It wasn't quite a lie. Something here _was_ wrong, and not just the fact that there'd been a murder. (The second one today, technically.) John just didn't know what it was yet. Not enough to tell Sherlock about it, anyway. He sneered at hunches and gut-instinct, which was all John had to go on at the moment.

The trees and underbrush thickened, somewhat muting the ever-present rushing sounds of traffic. With the woods closing skeletal fingers around them and the wind dying down, even the sky loomed low and oppressive. John felt his back stiffening, the sense of wrongness intensifying with each step. He forced himself to keep up with Sherlock because his feet felt like they were doing their best to root him to the spot, or even better, turn him around.

And yet... still deeper, something stirred way down inside his chest, something dark and smooth and cool, a current of subtlest magnetism that drew him along.

It had to be his imagination. A combination of his own paranoia and the unsettled mood of the police. Sternly, he told himself to get a grip. Some big, brave war hero he was, acting like this. Next he'd be jumping at shadows and things that went bump in the night.

“Freak's here,” Donovan announced as they broke into a clearing.

It wasn't a large clearing, only perhaps six or seven meters in diameter. Across from them at the other side, Lestrade and another officer appeared to be wrangling a camera on a tripod over the naked, blood-smeared body that lay at the foot of a large tree amongst the bracken as if it were just another fallen leaf. At Donovan's call, the DI looked up with an expression somewhere between grim and relieved. Sherlock, for his part, looked halfway to cross already, scowling at the tripod.

“What _are_ you doing, Inspector?” he drawled. “I know you can't be dragging that contraption through a crime-scene before I've had a look 'round.”

“We are getting photos, Sherlock. You know, they're those things in the case files, about eight-by-ten each, glossy on top, and that you always end up defacing with snide remarks and darts and chemical burns,” Lestrade said wearily. “We're having trouble getting a clear picture of the writing. If you've got a better idea, I'd like to hear it.”

“You could let me see this writing. My memory is better than your glossy eight-by-tens anyway, and you did invite me here.”

John cleared his throat. “Actually, he didn't. He sent you a photo and then you demanded an address.”

“And he gave it, didn't he?” Sherlock rolled his eyes and all but stamped his foot impatiently. “Same thing. Now, will you let me at it, or shall I catch a cab back to Baker Street?”

Lestrade sighed, obviously choking back his temper. But he gave the woman with the camera a sharp, quick jerk of his chin, and she packed up the tripod and retreated back the way they'd come. Donovan glared, but didn't say anything and didn't retreat. She didn't step farther into the clearing either, John noted.

“So what have you got so far?” Sherlock asked, striding forward, eyes on the ground as he went. Looking for footprints, obviously, and curling his lip at the mess the police had just as obviously made of the ground around the body.

“Unidentified female, approximately in her thirties, found this morning at ten by a couple walking through the park,” Lestrade explained, standing and peeling off his blue latex gloves. “Time of death unknown. And before you ask, there were no other footprints when we arrived, just hers and the couple's. We got pictures of _that_ just fine, if you want proof. Only wounds are on her neck and belly. No murder weapon in the park, which we have already combed within an inch of its life.”

“John,” Sherlock said, crouching down next to the pallid form and pulling out his pocket magnifier.

John went to join him as Lestrade stepped back to give them room, handing John a fresh pair of disposable gloves. He nodded his thanks with a wan smile and knelt down carefully on the side opposite Sherlock, ignoring the way that thing in his chest seemed to hum as he drew nearer to the corpse. Just his imagination. Just in his head. He pulled the gloves on.

The dead woman’s eyes were closed, her mouth slightly open, but there was no mistaking her for a sleeping body. Her facial features were rather plain, but she did have long, luxurious hair that fanned out beneath and around her, a dark brown shroud now tangled with leaves and matted with dried blood. He brushed some strings of it aside to get a clearer view of her neck. There was a deep incision on the right side, deep enough that the severed ends of blood vessels protruded. Common carotid and the jugular both, and they looked a bit stretched. Long, stark smears of dried blood cascaded from the gaping slit.

“There is no way this woman walked here herself,” John said with certainty. “She’d have bled out in minutes with a wound like this, and she’d have left a trail a mile wide.”

“Could she have walked here first and then made it?” Lestrade asked, but it was clear he knew what he’d hear in response.

“With what? This is practically a surgical wound. Whoever did it knew exactly where to go, and they had a steady hand while they did it. And once again, severed arteries are messy.”

“She didn’t make them,” Sherlock said, his head hovering close above her abdomen, blocking John’s view of the so-called writing. “Her hands are clean. Also, she would have left a small lake of blood around her, which you’ll note is conspicuously absent.”

John looked up at Lestrade, cocking his head. “And there was only one set of tracks. You’re sure?”

“One set of tracks,” Lestrade replied.

“Did someone carry her, then?”

“Unless they were the same shoe-size and height as her, and barefoot as well, no,” Lestrade said, a pinched look on his brow as if he was fighting a headache. “And there was no exiting trail, either. How’s that writing look, Sherlock?”

Sherlock gave an impatient grunt, but did not immediately respond. Suddenly, he snapped his magnifier closed and straightened up. “John, take a look. I want to know what you think made those marks. Lestrade, get me your photos of the footprints. This crime-scene is a disgrace. Who did you have in charge of forensics, Anderson’s half-wit twin?”

“Sally, get the camera from Ramirez,” Lestrade ordered, but he glared at Sherlock. “You, start talking. Is that scribbling there a language or what?”

Not responding, Sherlock began to stalk about the clearing, hunting for the right set of prints. Sally heaved a disgusted sigh and set off again through the trees

“Are there _any_ intact footprints left here? Or did your ham-fisted, or –footed in this case, team run roughshod over every last one?”

“Of course we did; we knew you were coming and wanted to give you a real challenge.”

John tuned out the pair’s bickering, shuffling awkwardly on his knees to get a better look at the victim’s torso. The brands on her stomach stretched out in a blackened scrawl of lines, a little less than a foot long and about two inches wide. They didn’t appear to have any discernible pattern. In fact, they put John more in mind of the meandering paths burrowing things carved into the wood of trees beneath the bark than of any obscure cuneiform.

That had to be the reason they seemed so… familiar. Familiar, and… and _wrong_ , very wrong, so wrong it made John nauseous just looking at them and the way his eyes couldn’t exactly trace them, wouldn’t focus on them properly. Like one of those busy optical illusions that seemed to move as one’s gaze slid across them, uncomprehending.

He didn’t want to touch them. He wanted to get up and turn his back to the whole scene. The urge was so strong his thighs tensed beneath him to do just that.

“Get a grip, Watson,” he breathed to himself. He clenched his jaw, ignoring the squirming sensation in his gut, and placed his fingertips on the marks.

His skin _crawled_. Wrong, wrong, wrong, and the humming in his chest spiked like a plucked string, like a struck tuning fork. A spark of something icy and sharp surged between him and the corpse, he _felt_ it happen, and then he felt something _shift_ –

John lurched backwards, falling on his arse in the leaves and breathing heavily. Vaguely he was aware of Lestrade and Sherlock calling out to him, but he was staring at the body, at the woman’s face.

Distorted, opaque eyes stared right back at him.

In the tree above him, a dozen crows shrieked triumphantly.

 

TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heh, cliffhanger. Oops.
> 
> Happy Halloween, folks!


	3. Stolen (or, Something More Sinister)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This required SO. MUCH. RESEARCH. My Google search-bar dropdown list will never be the same. But that being said, I am not a doctor nor a forensics expert, so forgive if the medical/forensic bits don't add up. We're rounding to the nearest plothole, kids. :D
> 
> And awaaaayyy we go!

For a single, exquisite moment, John's world narrowed. He met the strange eyes of a dead woman, as crows cried and beat their wings above him. The humming became a thrumming, and the vibration was a wave of something purely cold and perfectly dark that swept him up. With preternatural clarity, he _knew_. He knew what he had to, what he _must_ do. It didn't even strike him as odd or wrong, of course not; this would set things _right_.

He found his hand reaching for his army knife in his jacket. 

“John!” Sherlock said sharply, suddenly beside him. A gloved hand on John's shoulder grounded him, drew him back into himself. 

The crows fell silent. John blinked hard, just once, disoriented as the clarity slipped away, eelquick. Confusion, like blood from a wound, welled up in its place. And, in a Pavlovian response, he turned to Sherlock to have this all explained. But Sherlock looked tense, nearly alarmed, and whatever he saw in John's expression made his eyes widen and his grasp tighten.

“What is it, John?” Sherlock demanded, giving him a little shake.

With his brain gibbering and the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end, he didn't trust his voice. He gestured with his right hand, the one not curled white-knuckled around the folded blade in his pocket. Sherlock glanced over, and back at John with thinned lips, but then he slipped to the side around him to investigate the new evidence. John exhaled shakily and tried to compose himself.

It was... difficult. The humming had not vanished but had subsided, turned sullen, a dissatisfied buzzing in his awareness. It wasn't nearly as bad as that bizarre wrongness from mere moments ago. Yet John couldn't shake the feeling he'd left something undone.

He suppressed a shudder.

What had he almost – God, his knife was in his _hand_. What the hell was going on with him? Was he going mad? Truly mad, psychotic-break mad, as opposed to generally-a-bit-offbeat mad.

But bodies didn't just open their eyes. Rigor mortis would do it, yes, but both eyes at once, right when... Well. He must be imagining things because there was no other option. Coincidence. And this strange feeling could merely be another new and miserable manifestation of his damned intermittent PTSD, right? If he could think his way into a limp, why not flat-out hallucinate? He could just hear his therapist rattle off some psychobabble how his trauma made it understandable that he had delusions of some strange affinity that involved murdered corpses, and wouldn't he feel better if he posted about it on the internet?

He tried very hard to believe that. He almost managed it, too. (Yet he was unable to ignore the very non-existent and wholly persistent nagging sensation that he felt down to his very bones.)

“Are you alright? You're white as a sheet,” Lestrade asked, stepping up to offer John a hand off the ground. He took it gratefully.

“'M fine,” John replied.

The fact that he said this with numb lips, while his legs threatened to wobble beneath him merely illustrated the fact that John Watson was still, as ever, a truly awful liar. Exhaustion unexpectedly hit him like a freight train, the adrenaline pulverized and receding in its wake. He swayed.

“Easy, mate,” Lestrade cautioned, putting a steadying arm out to brace John by the shoulder. “What's wrong?”

“Nothing,” John said, then added vaguely, “Just, um...” He cleared his throat. “Remembered something.”

Lestrade's eyes softened from worry to sympathy. John sort of wanted to punch him. Yes, he'd meant to imply this was his PTSD ( _and nothing else_ ), but he hated the pity that came with it. Lestrade opened his mouth to offer whatever platitude he thought John hadn't heard a thousand times before, but he was cut off when Sherlock piped up.

“Eye caps.”

Both of them turned to look at Sherlock, who then, with a hand newly-encased in a blue latex glove, plucked a clear, plastic oval from the eye of the victim. His flatmate stood and held it out for examination. It was a fair bit bigger than a contact lens with tiny, rounded studs peppering the surface its convex curve. John tried not to sigh in relief; he'd wondered why her eyes looked so weird, even for a corpse. At least _that_ had a reason that made sense. 

“Eye caps. Used by embalmers to keep the eyelids closed. Whomever you had on forensics should be sacked immediately for missing something this painfully obvious,” Sherlock sneered smugly. “It's a good job John thought to check the victim's pupils.”

Recognizing his cue, John lied promptly, “Yes, I did. I checked that.”

Sherlock peered at him. John tried not to appear blatantly insane.

“I'll have a talk with my people,” Lestrade said, chagrined. He let John go with a parting pat, then pulled an evidence bag from his coat. He opened it and jiggled it until Sherlock reluctantly dropped the eye cap inside. Then he added, “You should get this one home. He's positively grey, now.”

As disturbed as he was, and as badly as he needed a nice cuppa to settle his nerves before he wound up in the loony bin, John balked at being the reason they were kicked off the crime-scene before Sherlock was finished with it.

“I'm fine,” he insisted stubbornly.

Sherlock's gaze lingered on John, sweeping him up and down quickly. John's posture straightened as if it was his old drill sergeant and not his flatmate he needed to impress.

“Yes, quite,” Sherlock agreed after a telling pause. But he turned back to Lestrade to say, “And you should check funeral homes and mortuaries for missing bodies.” He took off his latex glove, turning it inside out in the process and held it gingerly in his spare hand whist he dug out his phone with his bare fingers.

“Wait, what? Missing bodies? Why?” Lestrade's eyebrows furrowed.

Sherlock's eyes lit in that unholy way they had when he was about to deduce the hell out of something. “First, she's cold, but limber. That means rigor mortis has already passed, so she's been dead over thirty-six hours, possibly longer. But putrefaction has not become evident, so she's been kept cold enough to delay that process. Not left outside here, or there would be signs of scavenger animals. Ergo, she was stored somewhere more appropriate before our perpetrator put her here.

“That wound on her neck is the most common incision point for the embalming process, and combined with the eye caps, I'd say it's a fair bet this woman was stolen,” Sherlock pronounced with typical blasé authority. He knelt again and pointed at a dark, purple-red blotch on the victim's posterior, just visible from the side. “Lividity marks, she's got those as well. If she'd bled out from that wound of hers, there'd be barely any blood left in her to form those. Get an autopsy, find out what killed her. It wasn't bloodloss, but that doesn't mean it wasn't murder.”

Lestrade looked like a man trying not to gape. “Of – of course. But, stolen? Why?”

“Someone's idea of a prank, perhaps. Or perhaps something more sinister. They tried very hard to make it look like she walked here on her own. Look at her feet! Caked in mud, cut up as if from walking barefoot for some distance over rough terrain. If it's not a prank, it could be someone trying to frame someone else.”

“And the footprints? The language?”

“Our prankster dropped her here and then either walked backwards in their own tracks back to the path, or they shinned up this tree and dropped down from one of the lower branches, out of the way.” He stopped to scowl at the black scribbles on her belly as if they'd insulted his violin playing.

John, in the wake of all this revelation, began fighting off a second rush of dread. If rigor had passed – and Sherlock's observations were medically sound – _and_ the eyes had been held shut with funerary equipment specifically designed to prevent them accidentally slipping open, then how on earth could they have? Sherlock and Lestrade had assumed John pried the lids up, as if that was the only way it could have happened.

He glanced uneasily at the woman's face again. One eye remained obscured behind another eye cap, but the bare one...

Sunken into its socket and cornea gone milky, but for all that, it was fixed right on John. His throat closed and he looked away again, nerves jangling.

If it wasn't rigor mortis, what else _could_ it be?

(He was sure he didn't want to find out.)

Meanwhile, Sherlock had snapped a couple of photos on his phone and checked them, saying, “John didn't you say earlier they could have been made before she died?”

John roused himself to look at Lestrade and say, “Uh, yeah, maybe. That photo you sent, it looked like there was inflammation around them. Only happens when made before death, or very immediately after.”

“There's no inflammation here,” Sherlock replied levelly. He stood again. “Must have been the crap photo. I'll get back to you on these markings, now I've got some decent pictures to work with.”

“Oh, so I've just fetched the camera for nothing, then?” Donovan said, lugging the tripod into the clearing alone, and looking all the more sour for it.

“No, no,” Lestrade said quickly. “He'll still take a look. Where's Ramirez?”

“Having a coffee,” Donovan replied stiffly, each word very succinct and her expression forbidding further comment.

“With Anderson,” Sherlock commented further. “So he _was_ the one who bungled this crime-scene so badly. Coming in to work so overtired, no wonder he was sloppy. But do give my thanks to Ramirez for getting him out of the way for me, Sally.”

Donovan glared, her color rising. “I ought to go bring him down here, and you can see how a _real_ forensic expert goes about cataloging evidence.”

“I don't know what's sadder, that you say 'expert' like you honestly believe it, or the fact that _someone_ gave that monkey in a blue coverall a certificate in forensics to begin with,” Sherlock rejoined disdainfully. “Now, the camera, if you would.”

“I wouldn't, actually,” she snapped back.

“Sergeant Donovan,” Lestrade said authoritatively, “give him the camera.”

With a face like someone sucking on a lemon, she closed in and thrust the large, high-quality digital camera, with attached tripod, at Sherlock. He took it with the air of a king receiving his due, then turned away from the woman in blatant dismissal. She huffed and rolled her eyes.

“If the freak's finished getting his jollies with the body, I'll just tell the removal team to come collect, shall I?” she asked, addressing Lestrade once more.

“Sherlock? You done?” the DI asked wearily.

“Mm, yes,” came the distracted reply as Sherlock busied himself with the camera, eyes never leaving the display.

Lestrade nodded at Donovan, who turned to walk out for the second time. Her eyes landed on John, who didn't have the energy to smile apologetically at her as he usually did when Sherlock was difficult.

“What's wrong with you?” she asked, nothing of sympathy in her voice. “You look like you've seen a ghost.”

John cleared his throat and repeated firmly, “I'm _fine_.”

“Well, can't blame you getting the creeps, I suppose. It's not every day a real, dead zombie goes for a stroll in the park,” she remarked as she left.

“Oh,” Sherlock looked up, incredulous. “That's _really_ what your people think? Why they've been skittish as lab rats on electrode day? Have they written their brilliant conclusion in the report? I wouldn't put it past Anderson. What's next, allowing spectral evidence in a court of law?”

Lestrade looked as if he wanted to bury his head in his hands and cry. “Sherlock, are you done yet? We really do have to get a move on with this body; the city wants the park cleaned up by sundown.”

“Oh, _fine_ ,” Sherlock grumbled. He handed the camera to Lestrade. “Email me all of the photos from the scene. You're sending her to Bart's?”

“Yeah, as per usual,” Lestrade responded, waving his free hand vaguely. “I'll let Molly know to expect you.”

“There'll be no keeping him out, that's for sure,” John commented, relieved that they were finally leaving. “He'd set up camp in the mortuary if they'd let him.”

“Good thing Sally didn't hear that,” Lestrade said, mustering a lopsided grin. “Or she'd have more fodder for necrophilia jokes.”

John blinked, and then the phrase 'pitch a tent' came to him, and he groaned. “God, never mind. I'm going to pretend I never said that, and you're never going to bring it up again.”

“I hope I've never 'brought it up' to begin with,” Lestrade said, grin firming. He waggled his eyebrows. “There's enough workplace romance in my department as is.”

“Both of you, shut up,” Sherlock cut in, utterly unamused at this speculation. “John, we're leaving.”

Not a moment to soon, John didn't say. He stripped off his own gloves, carefully turning them inside out as he did, and Lestrade took them and Sherlock's single one as well. He nodded his thanks as they turned to go.

The removal team, having been on stand-by judging from their quick arrival, swept in. Sherlock hesitated, standing back to watch them move the body into the black bag on a hand-held stretcher. John resisted the urge to groan again, impatient to have done with this whole misadventure already. He would not be putting it on the blog, that was for certain –

“Oh, sweet Jesus,” one of the blue-suited men gasped, making John look back.

They'd lifted the body up. The ground underneath her... _writhed_. John's breath died in his throat as Sherlock left his side once more.

“They're _everywhere_ ,” another man said, eyes squinched in disgust above his face mask. “Ugh, gross.”

“What on earth – this is just wrong,” said the first.

Sherlock squatted down beside the patch of bared ground, cocking his head. “Centipedes. Interesting. They should be hibernating, this time of year. Yet another thing Anderson missed. Lestrade, have you any more of those evidence bags?”

 

*

 

The ride back to the flat began in complete silence, Sherlock's born of contemplation, and John's of something like shock.

There was no way he could explain what had happened back in the park. He didn't want to have to explain it, either; he just wanted to forget it ever happened. This whole day was a wash, as far as he was concerned. First the bloody birds, then the bloody body, then the bloody _bugs_ – Christ, if it wasn't all so damned disturbing, it would make for a good blog entry. If he wrote a horror fiction blog, anyway.

At least the humming had faded now, finally. Once that inexplicable symptom of weirdness was gone, John was all the more ready to write it off as his imagination or his overexcited psyche.

He leaned his exhausted head against the cold window of the cab, closing his eyes.

Which was a mistake. He could only see the lines etched across the woman's belly, only they squirmed like the hundreds of centipedes they'd uncovered moments ago, and his stomach turned. He thought about the knife in his pocket, and what he might have done with it, if Sherlock hadn't snapped him out of whatever fugue he'd conjured for himself.

Grimacing, he opened his eyes and turned from the window. Sherlock was staring at him, and he had to suppress the urge to startle.

“Are you all right?” Sherlock asked, voice low and tinged with something that might be mistaken for concern.

“Just tired,” he sighed, crossing his arms.

Sherlock opened his mouth, then closed it. John raised a brow. It wasn't often Sherlock hesitated. 

“What?” John asked shortly. His head had started to pound as soon as they'd gotten out of the park, the start of one of the truly awful tension headaches he was prone to when overtired and overstressed.

“What was it you remembered, earlier?”

John's brow furrowed, lost for a moment, before he recalled his on-the-spot fib to Lestrade. He glanced down, away from Sherlock's prying gaze. He knew he couldn't make up anything believable in the state he was in, just as he knew Sherlock would see through even his best lie, anyway. So he didn't lie when he said, “I'd rather not talk about it.”

The quiet returned, and John settled in for the ride. But then, Sherlock spoke again.

“I know you hate acknowledging your PTSD; you think it means you weren't brave enough or fast enough or good enough at being a surgeon and soldier, even though surely everyone in your acquaintance, including professionals such as your therapist, has indicated otherwise. Likewise, you don't wish to acknowledge it to me specifically because you think I would judge you for having an emotional weakness. That fly in the ointment again.

“But,” Sherlock enunciated clearly, “You've forgotten that even I am not immune to such things, from time to time. Much as I would like to be. The fact is, you don't scare easily, John. You're what my brother calls 'stupidly' brave, which is actually quite an accurate assessment given that you accompany _me_ on my cases without batting an eye, most days. And I haven't seen you as shaken as you were this afternoon since that unfortunate episode in Dartmoor.”

John looked up at that, to give him an _and-whose-fault-was-that_ glare. Sherlock didn't flinch. In fact, he seemed very intent and at something of a loss.

“Did you have a point, Sherlock?” John bit out, not particularly in the mood to be deduced after the wretched day he'd had.

“John. I – You know that I am... That emotions are not my forte,” Sherlock said, his hands flapping a bit before he laced them tightly together in his lap. John He glanced over John's shoulder, out the window as he said, “But if you ever _do_ want to... tell me. About that thing. The one you remembered today. You know I would listen. If you wanted me to.”

John resisted the urge to boggle at him, and rather suspected he failed because then Sherlock squeezed his eyes shut and he huffed very dramatically, slouching back in his seat with his arms crossed.

“Delete that, would you,” he mumbled, closing his eyes.

“No,” John said quickly, making Sherlock's eyes open again. John managed a smile for him, for this mad, awkward genius of a man who didn't know how to offer a crying-shoulder even to his closest friend. “No, I don't think I will. I'm going to keep that in mind for a good long time. Someday, I might even take you up on it.”

The corners of Sherlock's mouth quirked upwards for just a moment, and he unknotted himself marginally. John's smile became more heartfelt, and his mood lifted just a bit.

“So,” Sherlock began after a moment. He dug an evidence bag out from his pocket. “Centipedes.”

“Ugh. Don't tell me. Our mystery bodysnatcher is an undertaker moonlighting as an entomologist.”

Sherlock snorted. “Lucky guess.”

John grinned and shook his head. “I never guess. I _observe_.”

“Then open the door. We're home.”

**TBC**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have I mentioned I am a total dork for comments and kudos? Well, there, I mentioned it. Please do let me know what you think, one way or another! I'm so glad that people seem to be enjoying this weird little fic of mine so far. Thanks for taking the time to read!


	4. Two Dreams (or, Between Night and Earth)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beware the tenses shifting. I am experimenting with ways not to have hideously long blocks of italicized text, because IMO they are annoying and hard to read. Also, I tend to fuck up the damn html tags when everything's all topsy-turvy like that. ANYWAY. If it this style doesn't seem to work, please do let me know - it is only an experiment.
> 
> This chapter is not very funny. :( But! It is creepy. If that helps.
> 
> Onwards!

The dream begins with John leaving 221B for a walk. He's frustrated, because Sherlock is frustrating. So, he leaves for a walk, out in the cold, in the damp, in the dark. He's forgotten his jacket, and the chill doesn't cut through him so much as _permeate_. He feels the heat leaching from his body, but so slowly he almost doesn't notice.

Fog wells up, flows in. Shifting in formless billows as it pours across the London, it makes faraway beacons of the streetlights, half-glimpsed phantoms of the huddled figures passing beneath them. The fog rolls in thick, cloying, impenetrable. John's bared skin – because he's naked now, somehow – dews with it, and drops run down him in shivers.

But _he_ can't shiver; his body is too cold. Through and through, cold to the bone. His muscles creak with each step, stiffening and lurching. He can't be this cold. He can't possibly be this cold, not and still be moving, because of course, _of course_ , only dead things can be this cold.

And John is dead. Yes. Of course. He's been dead this whole time; he'd died in Afghanistan, hadn't he? Funny, Sherlock has never noticed. Then again, neither has John. He can't stay with Sherlock anymore, not if he's dead. And it makes him sad, so unspeakably sad, but he has to leave now that he knows that he is dead.

He travels deeper into the fog, bare feet dragging across the pavement. He walks for a long time; time here is what matters because distance isn't making sense anymore, all roads blurred in enshrouding curls of mist.

The night, dark and still as forgotten catacombs, blots out the dim glow from the street. He's in a forest now. No, not a forest. The park. The fog thins enough to reveal the murky, hulking shapes of the trees around the clearing. The ground beneath him is all slick mud and wet leaves, and it squelches between his toes, sucks at his heels with each heavy, lumbering step.

John is tired, now, so weary he cannot go on. He needs to rest.

There is a tree, clearer than all the rest, somehow forlorn even though it is huge and gnarled with a vast canopy of jagged, black branches; a hundred thousand thin, straining, many-fingered hands thrown beseechingly to the unseen heavens. Complex weave of roots to take him under, where worms dwell sightless and hungry, where secrets are kept forever silent, where there is finally, _finally_ peace.

He lies down at the foot of this tree that stretches, lonely amongst its kin and lost in endless fog, between night and earth.

Something crawls over his hand. He turns to look, one last look before he sleeps.

_She_ is there, ghastly and sudden and close, all pallid face and dark hair and milky eyes that bore into his, even as her mouth gapes, as her hand closes over John's with a grip like winter's teeth in January's throat.

She growls, _accuses_ with rasping, fetid breath, “You woke me up.”

 

*

 

John jolted upright in his bed, the shout strangled out of his throat around a knot of terror.

Downstairs, the muted sound of a bow sawing aimlessly over violin strings cut off, followed by a pause. When the playing began again, the song was something adagio, soft, and soothing.

He flopped back onto his mattress, burying his face in his hands to muffle his grunt. Christ, his heart was racing a mile a minute. Not only that, but he was drenched in a cold sweat and his head was bloody _killing_ him.

So, not dead yet. He was not dead. Good.

He swept his damp fringe away from his forehead and flailed in the direction of his bedside lamp. Light. He needed light, right now, after all that darkness in the dream. Nightmare. Jesus. He'd not had a nightmare like that – a normal one, one that didn't involve guns and bombs and carnage – since he was a child. Harry, of all people, had been there to give him a hug and tuck him back in.

Now John just got Sherlock's distant serenade. All things considered (he hadn't liked Harry even then, like her less now, and he _really_ liked Sherlock, and the thought of Sherlock giving him a hug and tucking him in was too ludicrous to even admit he might not mind it so much), he preferred it that way.

Clumsy fingers found the switch at last and flicked it on. Cheery incandescent light flooded his familiar surroundings. The pain in his head spiked, too, bleary eyes squinting, but he sighed in relief as he scanned his neat room. He knew it was just a dream, but he couldn't stop himself from half-expecting the woman to be there; she'd been _so close_ , so vivid, so unexpected, it almost wouldn't surprise him to see her there on the floor, watching him. He couldn't help the sigh of relief when his search revealed nothing.

He was alone, of course. Now that he was calming down, he huffed a humorless laugh at himself. He really was too old to be this utterly silly.

But he still wasn't going back to sleep for a while.

He sat up again, grimacing at the clammy feeling of his pyjamas. Change, wash face, make tea, pester Sherlock. He hadn't had to fall back on this particular pattern of relaxation, unorthodox as it was, for months. The PTSD dreams had lost their sway over him within weeks of coming to live here, and even after the 'unfortunate episode in Dartmoor' he'd not had a relapse.

What was so different about this case, that it had somehow done what even that grisly rash of mutilations last July had not, and given him nightmares?

_“You woke me up.”_

A chill slithered down his back, and in reaction John kicked his feet out from under his blankets, determined now to leave the dream behind. He stood and stretched, stepping to his dresser and already peeling his manky old t-shirt over his head. He'd just pulled a fresh old t-shirt on and was digging for fresh pants and pyjama bottoms when he happened to glance at his window, only half covered by the grey-blue tartan curtain.

A crow sat on the sill on the opposite side of the glass, tucked into the corner and puffed up against the night's cold. It cocked its head and blinked one dark eye at him.

“Oh, not you again,” he muttered because _seriously_.

The crow tilted its head the other way and wiggled its wings, as if getting more comfy. John stared, incredulous at the sheer cheek. He took a a quick step towards it, temper getting the better of him – always did, sooner or later – intending to throw the window open and shove the stupid thing off himself. He stopped, though, remembering the way the flock had stormed the sitting room yesterday. If he opened the window, what was to keep the lot of them from soaring straight on in?

“So that's your game,” John said. “Well, I'm not falling for it.”

The bird turned its head from him to pick at its feathers. John watched it suspiciously for a long moment before he came to his senses. He was talking to a _bird_.

Christ. He was losing his mind.

Pointedly turning his back to the window (because sod that, he was _done_ ), he finished changing clothes. Without a backwards glance, he left the room and padded in sock-clad feet to the loo.

He dug out two paracetamol tablets from the cabinet behind the mirror above the sink. He washed them down with a couple handfuls of water straight from the tap. Less because he was a 'confirmed bachelor,' and more because the loo tended to be one massive biohazard. He was thinking about stealing one of the big orange and black signs from the clinic to tack onto the door; maybe Sherlock would take the hint. Knowing Sherlock, he'd probably just take the sign.

John's lips pulled into a weak, lopsided smile at the thought. Then a pang ran through him. The dream had been terrible, not just because of the ending, not even because he'd been a walking corpse in it – though both of those were disturbing enough. No, just as bad had been the oppressive ennui, the feeling of loss, of grief. It was distressingly telling that his subconscious hadn't tried to pretend that leaving Sherlock behind wouldn't be the hardest part of being dead.

Even remembering it made his chest ache, ribs suddenly a size too tight to breathe easy.

Downstairs, Sherlock fiddled away, the lullaby still sweet and gentle, two things most people would never associate with the man. John barely did, though the fact that Sherlock was even bothering to play it at all was proof of Sherlock's elusive softer side. He let the sound of it warm the parts of his heart chilled by the nightmare, taking more comfort in it than strictly necessary.

(Someday, he'd have to sit himself down and work through the tangle mass of feelings Sherlock stirred in him, and maybe admit to himself exactly what those feelings were. But not tonight.)

He pulled himself together, washed his face and dried it with a hand towel, then shuffled downstairs.

John now mildly regretted having retired early last night. The exhaustion from that strange incident (panic attack, perhaps?) at the crime-scene had conspired with the intense headache that had only worsened as the evening had dragged by with Sherlock silently engaged in examining his centipedes under the microscope at the kitchen table. It was now just after two in the morning and further sleep a distant prospect. John sighed heavily and made his way into the kitchen.

Sherlock was in the sitting room, still playing. Last evening, he'd cleared the previous experiment from the table, moving them to the countertop beside the kitchen sink. John eyed the cups warily as he filled the kettle from the tap. Once the water was set to boil, he made his way to his armchair and flopped into it.

The curtains were drawn, and John could only be grateful. If there were masses of crows loitering outside, he'd be none the wiser. Lestrade had apparently sent the photos, as the wall above the mantel had transformed into a macabre collage of them. Sherlock stood before for them in his own pyjamas and the same dressing gown from earlier that day, eyes fixed on them as he played. John turned his gaze away from the pictures uneasily, not ready to be confronted with the face of the dead woman so soon.

He picked up yesterday's newspaper from the end-table next to him, to give him something to hide behind more than anything else. Sherlock drew the last, shivering notes from his violin, and then dropped his arms so quickly the bow swished in the air. John could feel those bright, pale eyes staring at the top of his head. The conversation from the cab drifted back to him. He struggled not to shift uncomfortably, hoping that Sherlock would not ask him to tell him about the dream.

“There is something very odd about this case, John,” Sherlock said instead.

“Thought you liked the weird ones,” he replied, voice hoarse from sleep.

“These footprints aren't deep enough!” Sherlock exclaimed as if John hadn't spoken. He set his violin down on the end-table by his own chair as he began to rant, “If someone roughly the same height and shoe-size as the victim carried her – and they'd have to be fairly sturdily built to have made it totally unaided over the thirty yards from the closest walking path, so one can assume they're heavier than she is, as well – then the footprints should be quite deep, but they're not. And the spacing! They staggered around like a drunk after last call. Look, John. John.”

When John didn't look up, Sherlock shoved a photo between his face and the paper. Luckily, it was just of a footprint, rather unremarkable to John, who'd never made a study of such things. He took the sheet from Sherlock and cleared his throat.

“Er, yeah. I'll take your word for it, mate,” John said. He glance up to hand it back to Sherlock, who was frowning down at him pensively. After a beat, Sherlock steepled his fingers in front of his mouth, turning back to the mantel. John rolled his eyes and set the photo on the end-table. 

“And you may have been onto something regarding the inflammation. Every one of these photos from before we arrived show distinct redness around the wounds on her trunk, even if they are blurry and out of focus. But the ones I took on my phone show nothing.” 

“The inflammation of burn marks is permanent, though,” John said, on firmer ground with this one. “They persist after death. If there'd been any present, we'd have seen it when we arrived, and it would be on your photos, too. It must have been a trick of the light. Lestrade did say they were having problems, and anyway, you said yourself that it was the crap photo.”

“Hmmm.” Sherlock didn't look satisfied by that, but he left it alone. He began to pace. “And the markings themselves. They're no language I've found yet.”

“Oh? Fancy a walk through Chinatown tomorrow, then? Seemed to work out well enough last time,” John offered with an attempt at a smile.

“Be serious, John. These look nothing like Chinese characters. Nor Japanese, Korean, Sanskrit, Ogham, cuneiform, hieroglyphics, Arabic, Aramaic, Hebrew, nor even bloody Norse runes! It's bloody gibberish!”

During his list, his frustration mounted until he was almost shouting, and he finished by dropping with typical drama into his chair. John tried not to wince; his head still throbbed stubbornly, and raised voices didn't help with that, thanks. Then he sighed and lowered his paper at last (though he wouldn't look left just yet).

“Well, at least you've established they don't mean anything,” John said.

“Wrong,” Sherlock replied immediately. “They mean _something_ , to the perpetrator if no one else. You don't take the trouble of branding someone that extensively without a reason. But what, _what_ did they hope to accomplish?”

John had no idea. He groped for a response. “Didn't you say it could be a prank? Combine that with that, er, assumption Donovan made at the scene. Someone just wanted to make people think there was some weird occult thing that would raise the dead?”

( _“You woke me up.”_ No, shut up, just a dream.)

“Hm, possible. People are painfully stupid about such things. Superstition,” Sherlock spat derisively. He hunched up in his chair, bare toes flexing in irritation where they dangled off the armrest. “One would think we're living in the eleventh century, not the twenty-first.”

“Let me see your phone,” John said.

He still didn't want to chance glancing at the wall. He knew what the woman looked like (he could still see her horrid gaping mouth and dead eyes in his mind so clearly it burned), and didn't need to see her any more than necessary. But it was probably fine to look at those photos Sherlock took. The man had been trying to get close-ups, after all, so there wouldn't be too much of the victim showing. Not that he thought he had a chance of figuring the mystery writing out when Sherlock couldn't. It was more for something to do, to shut Sherlock up. He was pretty certain this flouncing about was just Sherlock's way of trying to encourage John's participation (because God forbid Sherlock Holmes flat out ask for help).

Sherlock made a production of digging his phone from the pocket of his robe. Then he prodded it a few times to bring up the correct pictures and handed it over to John. The whole of the display was plastered with dead white flesh and stark black lines, no distinguishing characteristics visible at all. John resisted the urge to sigh in relief.

As at the crime-scene, an odd moment of near-recognition struck to him, and his mouth pulled down at the corners. There was a sudden awareness of low buzzing inside him, like a sleepy beehive. Not this again. It wasn't real, just psychosomatic, and he wouldn't waste time over it. Instead, he focused on the wormwords etched across the victim's belly.

His thoughts stopped short. Wormwords. Where had that come from? Granted, it was an apt description, but... The phrase seemed at once to fit too well, and to be wholly alien, something he wouldn't think normally. Not poetic license, but like it was a thing. A real thing. A proper title.

Well, whatever. The shoe fit, so to speak, so he'd just run with it.

The wormwords hadn't changed at all (of course they wouldn't, he hadn't expected them to, that was idiotic). Anyway, by now he knew the lines pretty well. Must have made an impression on him, because they now seemed very familiar indeed. His eyes picked out one strand and began tracing it, and he thought, _What do you mean?_

And as he stared, the longer he looked, the more it was as if he had an idea. It wasn't like he could read it, not like printed words. These squiggles weren't words; Sherlock had established as much. But they had _meaning_. It was a bit like looking at an abstract painting and actually getting what the artist meant to convey. This swerve and that long drag upwards, and that wiggly line back down, and on, and on, strong and commanding and wrong. It meant _come back_ , it meant _binding_ , it meant _rise, rise, rise_ –

A hand on his shoulder made him jerk so hard he dropped the phone. He craned his neck up to see Sherlock standing behind his chair, looking down at him speculatively, brows drawn low in what could almost be worry.

“Tea,” was all Sherlock said.

His other hand held out a steaming mug. John hadn't heard the kettle, hadn't even noticed when Sherlock went to make the tea. He'd actually _lost time_ , looking at those damn photos. What. The. Hell. 

“Um. Ta,” John stammered. The pain in his head spiked. “Sorry, I was miles away.”

“Yes, I noticed,” Sherlock replied dryly.

John leaned over to pick up the phone. He traded it with Sherlock for the mug. If his headache had been bad before, it now felt like several red-hot ice-picks wrapped in barbed-wire were slowly twisting his brains like spaghetti around a fork. For a long moment, he sat with his hands wrapped around his cuppa, warmth restoring circulation to his suddenly cold hands, inhaling the scent of perfectly-brewed tea with the proper splash of milk.

“It's not drugged,” Sherlock said from behind him. Slightly to the side, watching John's profile. “Scout's honor.”

John dredged up a sound that should have been a laugh. “Like you were ever a scout.” His own voice in his head made him cringe, face pinching. He put one hand to his eyes, pressing hard.

“Headache?”

John nodded carefully.

“Taken something for it?”

He nodded again.

“It's not helping, though.”

He shook his head, beginning to feel like they were playing twenty questions.

Sherlock cracked his knuckles. “I'll see what I can do.”

John pulled his hand away from his eyes, about to ask what Sherlock meant by that, but then cool, dextrous fingers began to rub circles over John's temples.

“What are you doing?” John asked, too tired to flinch away.

“Obvious,” Sherlock said in clipped tones. “Scalp massage. Helps with headaches, doesn't it, Doctor?”

“A bit,” John admitted. Sherlock's hands began working their way back from temple to the crown of his head, then down to the base of his skull. Fingers in his hair. Nice. Quite nice. But weird. “Not like you to be so helpful, though. Did you want something?”

“Just for you to be able-bodied come morning,” came the light response. “You'll want to document this case, no doubt. The sensationalists that read your blog ought to be thrilled with it.”

“Not blogging this one, I think,” John muttered, finally taking a sip of tea.

“No?” Sherlock did not sound surprised.

“No,” John said firmly.

“Why not?”

John couldn't say, _Because I think it's sending me 'round the twist, and we've only been on the case for less than a day._ So, he didn't say anything, just drank his tea and let Sherlock's firm and gentle touch each the ache behind his eyes. Sherlock didn't pester him, didn't deduce him. Slowly, John relaxed. When his mug was empty, he set it on top of yesterday's paper on the end-table and relaxed back into his chair with a deep sigh.

“There was something in the tea, wasn't there?” he mumbled, too tired to be properly angry about it. “Dammit, Sherlock.”

“Go to sleep, John,” Sherlock said quietly. And for God-only-knows what reason, John tended to do what Sherlock told him all the time.

This time was no exception.

 

*

 

In this dream, John and Sherlock gad about town on some ridiculous case, the details of which are hazy and rather unimportant. It culminates with John making the last, crucial connection that Sherlock misses because he's a silly bugger who doesn't ever watch telly.

“ _Hasselhoff_ ,” Sherlock snorts. “Ridiculous name. No wonder the Germans like him.”

“You really can't point fingers on that count, _Sherlock_ ,” John says.

They're sitting at a fountain in a park, now. Feeding the birds. Because of the case, it'd involved birds, too, somehow. John tosses morsels to the flock crowded around the bench, in front of the fountain. Next to him, Sherlock chuckles, low and smug.

And John's chatting about the case, saying things like 'amazing' and 'brilliant,' when Sherlock gets up and walks to the fountain, hands in his coat-pockets.

“You must talk to her,” he says, and his voice is strange now. Flat. Lower than usual.

Fog begins to roil up over the lip of the fountain. John keeps feeding the birds. They're not pigeons, he realizes. They're crows. And it's not bread-crusts he's throwing them. They're bits of fingers, each chunk a separate knuckle, fresh red flesh and little white juts of bone that black beaks snatch up greedily. He keeps feeding them.

“Talk to who?” John asks.

“She has a gift for you,” Sherlock says, intones.

“What are you on about?”

Sherlock turns around, and John's stomach drops. Sherlock's eyes. They're not there anymore. Instead there are two empty black holes, nothing beyond. _Nothing_ , not blood or nerves or bone, just a void, just the vast, eternal night between stars.

“She is waiting for you, John Watson,” Sherlock – no, _not_ Sherlock, it's not Sherlock anymore, there's _something else_ wearing Sherlock's body like Sherlock wears his coat – tells him. “You must not leave it undone.”

“Leave what undone?” John demands, though he knows, _he knows_.

The fountain flows red, thick and bright, spurting like a tapped artery. The crows cluster at John's feet, and Not-Sherlock _smiles_.

 

TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Please let me know Your Thoughts. I dig critique, too, so I'm not just fishing for compliments here. Don't hold back. I can take it. XD


	5. Trust Issues (or, Why Sherlock Can't Do Nice Things)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh, damn RL delays. 'Tis the season for it, I suppose. At any rate, have a belated chapter. This scene was a bitch and a half to write, because characters are assholes sometimes. This chapter and the next were supposed to be one chapter, but as the chapter is veeerrryyy looooonnnngg if I do that, I'm splitting it up.
> 
> Merry Solstice! If you're reading this, then the world has not ended, and the Mayans got a new calendar - it's likely got kittens on it. :D

John awoke with a full-body twitch and a rather undignified snort. Mrs. Hudson, standing next to his end-table, gave a startled squeak.

“Oh, goodness!” she said, hand going to her mouth. “Sorry, John, dear. I didn't realize you were sleeping. Just thought I'd tidy up a little.”

John blinked fiercely into the bright, grey morning light spilling in from the now-opened curtains. Whatever he'd been dreaming drifted away, flotsam on the the ebbing tide of sleep, and he had at once a wash of relief and a distinct, uneasy sense that he should have remembered it. He was quickly distracted by the fact that his headache had returned full-force, and now he had a massive crick in his neck from sleeping in his armchair.

“Uhmm,” he said, struggling for coherency. “No, um, no problem. Didn't mean to sleep out here.”

“I expect His Nibs kept you up all night with this new case of his,” Mrs. Hudson said, glancing over her shoulder at the mural of crime-scene photos with a sniff. “You really ought to tell him to keep this kind of thing in his room. It's a bit of an eyesore, don't you think? And that poor woman! As if it wasn't bad enough to be murdered in her birthday suit, now she's plastered up there for all the world to see.”

“All the world doesn't come into our sitting room, Mrs. Hudson,” John pointed out. He leaned forward and braced his elbows on his knees before burying his face in his hands.

On one hand, he really hated this morning already, and it had only just begun. On the other, it was decidedly hard to be worried about nightmares and the odd events of yesterday with Mrs. Hudson's misplaced but very down-to-earth mothering instinct out in full force. She pottered around the sitting room, tapping disorderly piles of casefiles and other papers into neat stacks on the the coffee table. (Sherlock was sure to complain about that later.)

“And him letting you sleep out here,” she clucked as she folded a tartan blanket and slung it over the arm of the couch. “That young man doesn't take proper care of you.”

“Hardly his job, is it?” John said. Though he remembered the song last night, and the surprising massage. And the _tea_ (which he should have suspected, given that Sherlock only behaved so solicitously when he was about to do something John would never agree to if asked).

“If not his, then whose is it? Your lady-friends never seem to stick around long enough for it,” Mrs. Hudson replied tartly. As she passed by, she swatted his shoulder with the newspaper she'd gathered off the end-table in her endless quest to tidy their flat. “I'll get the kettle on for you, but then I've got to dash. Mrs. Turner's having a baby shower for her married ones, wants help with the decorations.”

“Mm, sounds lovely, thanks. Have fun,” John said, standing. He licked his dry lips and glanced towards the kitchen, a preemptive scowl in place in case Sherlock was sitting at the microscope again. He wasn't.

“He's gone, didn't say where,” Mrs. Hudson told him, too knowing by half. “Did say that you should be ready to leave when he gets back.”

“Of course he did,” John grumbled. “Did he say when, at least?”

Mrs. Hudson shook her head, looking as if she was biting back a smile. “Best hurry, dear.”

“Right,” John agreed, only half-sarcastic. Just his luck that after all this fuss, he'd get left behind, or chased out the door with only half his face clean-shaven. (Sadly, it would not the first time the latter had happened. He'd got more odd looks that day than had Sherlock, who'd been nattering on about bloodstains on velour, distinctive posh cupcakes, and obscure Feng Shui practices.) “Right. I'm for the shower, then.”

“Off you go,” Mrs. Hudson shooed him upstairs.

Feeling a bit like a layabout son-in-law (which, along with being unfair, drew unwelcome parallels in his head), John went up to shower and shave. The hot spray of water helped him feel a little more human, though he still felt groggy and tired. What _had_ Sherlock slipped him? If it made him feel like a zombie all day –

John's lips twisted. Okay, bad metaphor.

He concentrated on his anger over the tea, letting it simmer hotter. If that was Sherlock's version of 'taking proper care' of John, then he wanted no part of it. The nerve! Sherlock had no right to drug John's food and drink whenever he felt like it. Hell, _John_ had never dosed Sherlock against his will, not even when he really _ought_ to have – the four-day stretch last July came to mind, when Sherlock had got so tired and strung out he'd started speaking French and hadn't even realized and had just got more and more frustrated that no one could understand him. (John's meager French vocabulary had grown one word by the end of the day: _'merde.'_ ) 

By the time he dried off and shaved, John had worked up a good head of steam over the incident. The persistent bloody headache didn't help his mood any, and as he wrapped a towel around his waist and grabbed his pyjamas off the floor, he vowed vengeance of the experiment-destroying kind. He chuckled viciously to himself as he stepped back into the hall, envisioning a row of clean cups and glasses on the countertop next to the sink.

“What's so funny?”

John jumped, nearly losing his grip on his clothes and towel. Sherlock, in his dressing gown again and with a towel draped over his arm, stood at the top of the stairs, looking impatient. John glared at him, and received a nonplussed glance in return.

“What?” Sherlock asked. “If you're upset I didn't wake you to come along, you really needn't be. I had to go ask around with the homeless network around Caledonian Park. No one saw anything useful, a waste of time. Are you finished with the shower?”

“I'm not upset you didn't wake me,” John bit out. “I'm upset I was sleeping in the first place.”

Sherlock cocked his head, a bemused expression on his face. “You were tired. Exhausted. It's no wonder you slept like a log. Ironic, because when you sleep sitting up, you snore like a buzz-saw.”

“No wonder,” John repeated. “No, I don't suppose you would wonder, as it was your fault.”

Sherlock blinked. “My fault you were exhausted.”

“Yes.” John gave a sharp nod by way of reinforcement.

“How do you figure?”

“The _tea_ , Sherlock!” John shouted, regretting it when his headache spiked. In a tight, controlled voice he accused,“You drugged me. Again.”

Sherlock weathered the outburst with raised eyebrows – not of surprise, but of understanding. Then they furrowed again. “No, I didn't. And technically I've never successfully drugged you in the first place.”

“ _Sherlock_ –”

“Rest assured, John, I did not put anything in your tea,” Sherlock said, drawing himself up to his full height, neck straight and that oh-so-above-all-this expression on his face. “I told you as much last night, but apparently it bears repeating. I didn't have to drug you. You were barely awake last night to begin with. I've had more productive brainstorming sessions with the skull.”

John bridled at the jab. “And why should I believe you? It's nothing you haven't tried before.”

“Exactly why I wouldn't try it again,” Sherlock snapped. “I thought we covered that already.”

“And you wouldn't lie to me,” John agreed, all sarcasm. “Like you wouldn't slip one of Mrs. Hudson's herbal soothers or whatever in my tea and then swear on your 'scout's honor' about it.”

“Oh, please,” Sherlock shot back derisively. “If I were going to drug you, don't you think I'd have a better misdirection than simply telling you I wasn't? And those herbal soothers taste vile dissolved in tea, you'd have noticed.”

“So it wasn't a soother,” John said, catching on the possible thread of admission. “What was it, then? It's making my headache worse, but I can hardly take anything else if I don't know what kind of reactions I'm in for.”

“I won't repeat myself a third time, John,” Sherlock replied coldly, after a fraction too long of a pause. He turned tense eyes away. “You can believe me or not, as you will. In future, I won't exacerbate your trust issues with acts of kindness or consideration. Any other wild accusations this morning, or are you finished?”

Without waiting for John to reply, Sherlock shouldered past him into the loo and slammed the door dramatically behind him. John was left on the drafty landing in naught but his towel, scowling and frustrated. He swore and spun away, shutting the door to his bedroom with just as much force.

 

*

 

Mrs. Hudson had indeed put the kettle on for him, but between his shower and the argument, the bloody thing had cooled too much to brew any tea. After switching it back on more viciously than really necessary, John then made toast and cleaned a mug while he waited. He began to read the new paper, which Mrs. Hudson had left it on the table next to the microscope.

He was in the middle of the Op/Ed pages when Sherlock blazed through the kitchen and into his room without a word. John sighed and the kettle clicked off. He got up and poured the water into the mug, over the waiting tea bag.

A few minutes later, Sherlock stepped out again. Judging by the look he gave John, he was ready to either face a firing line or man up and deal with (gasp! horror!) emotions.

John wasn't going to apologize, and if Sherlock was denying the allegation, then _he_ certainly wouldn't. John's paranoia over the tea, whether or not Sherlock had actually drugged it, wasn't completely baseless, and it served Sherlock right to face the consequences of his actions in Dartmoor – those being John's 'trust issues'. If Sherlock wanted John to trust him, he wouldn't go around being so damn blasé about abusing that trust in the first place. Sherlock was savvy enough to figure all that out on his own – at least, one would hope.

He glowered a Sherlock and pointedly looked back at his paper. He would have sipped his tea for emphasis, but it was still too hot.

Sherlock didn't say anything, but after a moment's hesitation, he crossed to the sink and began to ready his own cuppa. John turned the page.

A minute later, Sherlock perched on the chair in front of the microscope.

“Oh, so that's your game,” he said succinctly.

John sipped his tea. He didn't care that he burnt the tip of his tongue, and he didn't care that the silent treatment was juvenile, either. Lord knew he put up with it from Sherlock for days at a time.

“Revenge is so dull, John, you could do so much better. I assume you've hidden them somewhere, because I know you wouldn't destroy evidence for a case we've only just begun.”

John frowned harder at the newsprint he was not reading. Revenge? Destroying evidence? Were these just ploys to get John to speak? Well, he wasn't going to fall for that.

“John! Where did you put them?” Sherlock snapped loudly.

The noise made him grimace. Damn it all, Sherlock would only get louder at this rate. “Put what?”

“You know what.”

“Uh, no, I don't.”

“The _centipedes_ , what have you done with them?”

John rolled his eyes, not bothering to keep the irritation from his voice when he said, “I didn't do a bloody thing to them. Maybe Mrs. Hudson binned 'em when she was tidying this morning.”

Sherlock got up in a huff and began digging through the garbage, keeping a running commentary under his breath that John didn't bother to decipher. He almost wished he _had_ thought of hiding the damn things – it would be a lot less work than washing all the cups and glasses in bleach solution – but Sherlock was right in that John wouldn't tamper with evidence from an ongoing investigation.

“They're not here,” Sherlock snarled after he'd emptied the whole bin. “Where have you hidden them? Or did you flush them down the toilet?”

John finally put the paper down to glare at Sherlock, who glared suspiciously at him from his position on the floor, surrounded by the rubbish he'd strewn out in his search.

“You're cleaning that up before you leave for Bart's,” John told him in his commanding-officer voice.

“We're not going anywhere until I have those specimens back,” Sherlock said, standing and giving John a pointed look.

Something about the way he lightly stressed the first person plural mollified John in an abstract kind of way – yes, they were fighting, but it wasn't bad enough to make Sherlock cut him out of the case – but the rest of him just wanted to throttle the man.

“Oh, for Christ's sake,” John muttered, scrubbing at his face with one hand. “I didn't touch them, alright? You sure they didn't just crawl off somewhere?”

“They were _dead_ , John, of course they didn't 'crawl off somewhere.' Unless – oh, wait, no, that's brilliant!” Sherlock hit his forehead with one palm, a look of exaggerated epiphany on his face. “Inform the Yard. They were onto something with their zombie theory after all. Corpses animated by undead arthropods, it all makes sense now.”

And with that truly unnerving image in his head (bodies stuffed full of bugs and wandering around, dear God he had to learn not to picture things Sherlock said), John begrudgingly helped tear the flat apart in search of the missing centipedes. After ten minutes of picking through piles of 'scientific' debris and watching Sherlock fume and rant, he called a halt by flopping gracelessly into his armchair.

Sherlock, in the midst of an upset stack of papers on the sitting room floor, looked up, the picture of indignant frustration and staring at John in a how-dare-you-sir kind of way. John began to laugh. Sherlock twitched and raised a brow, which just made him laugh harder. His head throbbed, but he found he didn't care, especially when Sherlock reluctantly began to smile as well.

“We've just ransacked our own flat,” he said through his chuckles, surveying the wreckage. “Mrs. Hudson is going to have stroke when she sees this.”

His flatmate glanced around at the wreckage and had the decency to look a bit sheepish. John let his laughter trickle off. After the last of the mirth died down, he met Sherlock's gaze evenly.

“I didn't hide your bugs,” he said. When Sherlock opened his mouth, John cut him off, “Or dispose of them, or relocate them, or even touch the leggy little bastards.”

Sherlock held his gaze and gave a very unsurprised nod (John really was a crap liar, and Sherlock had likely known from his first denial that he really hadn't done anything to his precious evidence). He returned levelly, “And I did not drug your tea last night.”

John wondered if that's all this was about, if Sherlock had engineered the loss of his specimens just to illustrate a point. Still, he found himself nodding. “All right, then.”

And just like that, the conflict of the morning resolved, water off a duck's back. It never ceased to amaze John that they could have this kind of easy dysfunction, this so-broken-it-worked kind of friendship. Trust issues notwithstanding, John was sure he wouldn't have it any other way.

“Right.” Sherlock clapped his hands together briskly and said,“Bart's?”

“What did I say about the rubbish in the kitchen?”

Sherlock rolled his eyes but went into the kitchen obligingly enough. John grinned, shook his head, and began to put the couch cushions back to rights.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next update should not take nearly as much time as this one. :D


	6. 6A) - An Awkward Proposal (or, Your Aura is Huge)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahaha, so I lied about that wait time. Ah well, here's the start of a two-part chapter, because Chapter Six is the chapter that would not fucking stop growing. The next part should be along quite soon! (Though with my track record, you'd be nuts to believe me.)

They left with little fanfare (though John made time to very deliberately and surreptitiously leave his army knife behind), the ride peppered by muttered thinking-aloud snippets from Sherlock. John began to prepare himself for seeing the body again. Not that there was anything to prepare for; it was just a body. He'd seen loads and loads of bodies in his life, and no doubt he'd see many more if he kept company with Sherlock.

But. Still. Preparing himself wasn't a bad idea. Just in case.

Of course, preparing himself seemed to mean that he spent most of the ride staring out at the leaden autumn sky that was slowly darkening with wetter, rainier clouds. Which was how he spotted the murder of crows following their cab.

At first he thought it was (tried to believe it was) just a coincidence, to be driving in the same direction that the flock was going. But after four stoplights and two turns, the birds still trailed after them, black wings busily flapping to keep up. He had time to count them, even. A full dozen once more.

The back of his neck tingled, and he swallowed with a dry throat. He'd hoped that nonsense from yesterday had finished. His gaze flicked to Sherlock nervously. Had the detective noticed this bit?

Because this... this was no coincidence. Six stoplights and two turns, now three, and looking back – yes, the birds were still following.

John faced forward, staring at the back of the cars directly ahead of them through the windscreen. He willed his hands relaxed, wouldn't let them tense or form fists where they rested on the tops of his thighs. If asked two days ago about the habits of birds, John would have said they didn't chase cabs. Neither did they try to break into flats en mass. Or keep watch on him overnight. But clearly he was wrong.

It wasn't delusion. It wasn't paranoia.

He couldn't help but crane around for another backward glance.

“Crick in your neck bothering you that much?” Sherlock asked casually. “Or did you spy another ginger nudist?”

“Um,” John said. He really didn't think pointing out their avian pursuers would help. He reverted to staring at his hands. “Something like that.”

Without even glancing over, he could tell Sherlock was looking at him funny again. (Or should it be _observing_ at him funny? Lord knew that Sherlock never merely looked at anything, the very idea.)

“Does Molly know we're on our way?” John blurted the first diversionary question to come to him.

“Not as such,” Sherlock said. “I prefer the element of surprise, in this arena. It's worse when she has time to... prepare.”

John rolled his eyes. “You make it sound like she's orchestrating a coup d'eta. She's just got a bit of a crush. And you bring it on yourself, the way you play it up in front of her – which you do deliberately so she keeps on having a crush.”

They've had this argument before, about the consequences of abusing the feelings of others in general and Molly in particular, because apparently John didn't know when to give up running headfirst into brick walls. A safe argument, one John knew practically by rote and wouldn't let Sherlock know John was getting a bit rattled again.

“In my line of work, I find the results are what matter. I need access to materials and tools Molly can provide. Molly enjoys flattery as much as the next person. I flatter her, she enjoys it, she provides access to me,” Sherlock explained flippantly. 

“Then the strategy is working?” John asked quickly. “Right, so don't complain. You do it to yourself, and now you have all this sentiment fluttering at you when you're trying to become one with the microscope.” He _tsk_ ed and shook his head. “How will you cope.”

“Mark my words, John. It's only a matter of time before sweet Molly of the ticking biological clock sets her sights on such an eligible and confirmed bachelor as yourself,” Sherlock assured him with mock regret. “Then we'll see how well your dear consideration stands up in the face of all her simpering and batted eyelashes.”

John shook his head dolefully and clapped Sherlock on the shoulder, “I doubt she'll even notice me, Sherlock, when you've got her blinded with science.”

For some reason, this made Sherlock grin, and a side-effect of Sherlock's rare, unfeigned grin was a similar one forming on John's lips, even when John didn't intend to let it.

“Admitting profit from an activity of which you disapprove? Doctor, your ethics seem a bit precarious on that high horse of yours,” Sherlock said with a sly tilt to his brows.

“Oh, so _now_ ethics matter,” John snorted sardonically.

The moment stretched , real mirth in their shared gaze, real warmth in the edges of their smiles. John realized that during this exchange they'd both leaned forward into the other's space. Like gravity, or magnetism, so natural it made John's heart give a startled trill.

At that moment, they arrived. Sherlock gave him that damn cheeky wink and ducked out of the door as soon as they came to a stop, leaving John to pay. At least that way he didn't see the sudden flush pinking John's face and ears.

He tried not to feel exposed as he got out, scanning the area as he paid and hurried after Sherlock's lean, striding form. He heard wingbeats and raucous caws above him, behind him. (And part of his dream came back to him, red meat and black beaks snapping.)

John kept his hands in his pockets to disguise the way they clenched. He wouldn't look. He wouldn't, because then Sherlock would notice and make some snide comment about birdwatching again. It wasn't birdwatching when the birds were watching _him_ , only him, their eyes boring into him and making his skin prickle. He licked his lips and caught up as Sherlock entered the building. It was difficult not to sigh in relief when the door swung shut behind them.

The chemical scents and bustle of the hospital greeted him, a familiar setting to help him ground himself. It didn't, though, because he couldn't believe it when he told himself that everything was normal. He had no idea why crows would stalk him. He had the ridiculous urge to sniff under his arms, in case he'd started smelling like roadkill and no one had told him.

His headache throbbed anew, and he wished he hadn't been so distracted by that fight this morning so he could have taken a couple paracetamol tablets before they'd left. It felt like his head was trying to cave in by degrees with each step they took towards the mortuary.

(If underneath the pain, down in his chest, there strengthened a tug, a pull, a hum... he ignored it.)

Sherlock pushed through the doors with his usual dramatic flair, causing Molly to look up from her work at the lab table.

“Sherlock!” she greeted with a half-smile, raising her hand to brush her ponytail off her shoulder but awkwardly aborting the motion when she clearly remembered she was wearing the blue nitrile gloves for a reason. “Greg said you'd be popping by today.”

“Oh, did he?” Sherlock asked, sidling up to her lab station. “Seems _Greg_ has become a gossip in his old age.”

“He's not that old,” Molly said, smile faltering.

“Yes, he is, I've seen his yearbooks. But since you and _Greg_ are on such good terms, I assume he also told you which body I'm here to see.”

“Oh, um, yes,” she said, and the smile dropped completely. “I've finished the post-mortem, so you've got free rein, within reason.”

“And me without my riding crop,” Sherlock mused. He leaned over the lab table, peering at the test-tubes. “Did you find anything interesting?”

Mildly flustered, as was her default state in Sherlock's presence, she stowed her work, then peeled her gloves off as she replied, “Cause of death was kidney failure. No ID yet, but DNA and blood samples have been sent to the lab. I managed to get fingerprints without too much trouble. Gre- I mean, Detective Inspector Lestrade is cross-referencing them with the Met's files as we speak.”

Sherlock sniffed, but did not make a disparaging remark about the police's record-keeping. “Anything else?”

“Well, frankly, the stomach contents are _weird_ ,” Molly replied, wrinkling her nose. She crossed to the hand-washing sink to scrub down, saying, “Not food, that's for certain, and it wasn't her last meal, either. Looks to me like someone pumped her full of it after death.”

Sherlock's eyes widened with interest, already calculating vectors for this new variable. “Pumped her full of what?”

“The runniest salad I've ever seen,” Molly said, half-laughing at her own weak joke. “There's _twigs_ in it. Wasn't chewed, doesn't appear digested at all. Pending analysis as of yet, though. Thought you'd want to take a look at it.”

“Indeed. I'll want blood samples as well,” Sherlock replied with a curt nod. “Shall we get started?”

Molly handed him a sterile pair of gloves before she put on her own. Sherlock snapped up another pair and turned to hand them to John – who was not in his usual position at Sherlock's elbow.

Because John found himself standing by the single occupied slab in the center of the room, which he'd spotted as soon as he'd walked in. The hum in his chest and the pull – no matter how he tried to tell himself that neither of those things really existed – had grown strong, distractingly so, had diverted his steps until he was standing next to the covered form. His head pounded so fiercely he could hear the rising rate of his heartbeat in his ears.

He'd forced himself to pay attention to the conversation, forced his hands to clasp behind his back. His fingers itched, even so. He didn't know what for, didn't understand, but he _had to_... something. His eyes lingered on the tray of clean surgical tools on the cart beside the slab, the glint of sharp steel scalpels a sudden, inexplicable temptation.

Whatever he'd been trying to prepare himself for on the ride to the hospital, it had not been this. He licked his lips and looked towards his friends.

He found Sherlock staring back at him, a puzzled frown deepening when their eyes met. As she approached, Molly noticed him, apparently for the first time that day, and stopped in her tracks, all color draining from her face.

“It's you,” she gasped. Sherlock wheeled about to stare at her, and she seemed to realize this because she peeled her lips back from her teeth in a patently forced smile. “I mean, hello, John, how – um – lovely. I didn't see you when you came in.”

John's own discomfited bemusement at this reaction showed plainly as he said, “Er. Hi, Molly. Lovely to see you, too?”

Molly seemed frozen for a moment, eyes darting from John's face to the sheeted figure and back. Her quasi-cheerful grimace deepened and she turned to Sherlock.

“Actually, you know, this isn't the best time to start this after all –”

Sherlock's mobile rang out, cutting off Molly's embarrassingly bad excuses even as Sherlock began to roll his eyes in disbelief. He dug it out of his pocket, turning away from her as he answered with a snapped, “What is it?”

John quirked his head at Molly, who smiled harder and gave a significant sidelong look in Sherlock's direction. Clearly, she was under the impression that if John could communicate silently with someone as intellectually obscure as Sherlock, he must be well-versed at everyone's wordless intimations. This was not the case, particularly not right now, when his attention was decidedly occupied otherwise. John gave his head a tiny shake to indicate, _no, really, don't know what you mean._ Molly pursed her lips and tilted her head towards the door and looked at Sherlock again. Oh. John shook his head again, because this time he got it, and there was no way in hell Sherlock would go for it.

“What was that?” Sherlock said into his phone. He put his hand to his free ear, even though the morgue was as still as... well, itself. “I can't hear you. Moving to a better location, hold on.” He hung up and glowered at the device in his hand. “Bloody useless.”

“Who was that?” John asked.

“Lestrade. Something about the identity of this body,” he replied distractedly, already stepping around the room, phone at arm's length and his face turned towards the display. “I'm getting two bars, that should be more than sufficient.”

“Mobiles,” Molly chuckled unrealistically. “Wonky things. Why don't you try standing next to the windows by the cafeteria. I have to make all my calls there, terrible reception in here.”

“I've never had a problem with it before,” Sherlock insisted. His lips twisted petulantly. “Mycroft will hear about this.”

“Mycroft? Really? _That's_ how you get 4G coverage everywhere we go?” John asked, surprised even though he supposed he really shouldn't be.

“I hardly asked him for it,” Sherlock grumbled. “His own unilateral decision – though he's fat enough to count as a committee.”

“But you'll complain now that it isn't working.”

Sherlock shrugged. “He's used to it, he's in government.”

If the moment hadn't been surrounded by so much weirdness, John would have laughed. When he didn't, he found himself speared by another sharp glance.

“Well, Molly, since – even though you were expecting us, left the body conveniently out on the slab, put away your other work, and handed me these gloves – this 'isn't the best time,'” Sherlock said suddenly, turning towards her so quickly she started in the face of his obvious sarcasm and voiced quotation marks, “then John and I will go make some phone calls upstairs. I do hope you'll find it more convenient in a few minutes when we return. Come on, John.”

Sherlock whirled with a flap of his coat, heading for the doors. John fully intended on following, he really did. However, his feet flatly refused to budge. His hands clenched tighter, as if he could literally keep a rein on his rising alarm.

“Actually, erm, Doctor Watson – well, that is, _John_ , I, um – have a, a personal question I'd like to ask you,” Molly stammered so hurriedly that the words tripped over themselves a bit. Then, to John's fresh horror, she simpered and batted her eyes. “Privately.”

“Er, I should – um,” John blanked. It wasn't working, this splitting his attention between both the truly bizarre conversation and even weirder and ever-more-urgent draw of the blades beside him. Something was totally off, he'd left it undone and –

( _“You must not leave it undone.”_ )

A dagger of violent cold pierced his spine, and he could feel his skin turn to gooseflesh beneath all his layers, and his fingers twitched with intent towards the scalpels. He turned the motion into putting his hands in his pockets. Ignore it, he told himself. Ignore it until it's gone away.

Meanwhile, Sherlock drawled, “Well, John, I'm only phoning Lestrade. No need to tag along for that, perhaps.”

His look was pure mischief in a civil sheep's clothing, bright eyes and a very calculated placid smile. Oh, no, he wasn't – damn, John couldn't even glare at him properly, not with Molly standing right there and looking so painfully awkward and hopeful.

“Sure, Molly,” he said, weakly mustering a smile. At least he didn't have to worry about moving from this spot, as it seemed his lower half now seemed somehow fused with the floor. He shot a parting look of _you'd_ better _hurry back_ at Sherlock as the smug git made his exit.

No sooner than the door latched shut behind the man, Molly was on the move, darting over to bolt the door behind him. John blinked, a bit thrown.

“My god, John! I had no idea you were – I knew _someone_ would – You know, because of the wormwords, but – Well, this is sudden, isn't it?” came the quick rattle of sentence fragments as she crossed to a supply cupboard and took out a first-aid kit. She hurried back up to the slab, face now serious and intent in a way John wasn't certain he'd seen before. “Your aura is _huge_. Oh, sorry, I mean, um. How long have you been keeping vigil?”

(Yes, keeping vigil. All this madness was merely _keeping vigil_. And how would Molly know about the wormwords? He hadn't even said that term _out loud_ yet.) 

John blinked again and groped for a response. “Wha- What do you mean? I thought you...” He cleared his throat.

Molly wrinkled her nose and said quickly, “Oh, no, _no_. I just wanted Sherlock out of here. He doesn't know, I take it?”

Far more relieved than insulted by her offhand dismissal, John focused on the matter at hand. “No. And neither do I. What – what the _bloody hell_ is going on?” 

His tension spiked on the last sentence, and Molly raised both her eyebrows at his sudden shout.

John winced and went on more circumspectly, if no less strained, “It's just. I – I think I may be going mad, really, and you – what are you _talking_ about, Molly?”

For the first time, Molly hesitated, and she peered at him with that odd intensity again. “You – you really don't know? You've never done this before?”

“Done what, exactly?”

“Woke the dead.”

The way she said it, as if _obviously_ , as if people did this kind of thing every Tuesday down at the pub – well it was enough for John to feel part of his sanity crack, just a bit. Enough that he felt a giggle try to climb up his throat. He swallowed it even as he remembered _“You woke me up.”_

He took a deep breath. This was... This was all real, this was really happening.

“What – how do you know about this?” he stammered.

“Look, I'll explain later,” Molly huffed, obvious frustration and that panicked pallor shining through. “We don't have much time, and the state you're in, you'd never hold out much longer. Now, finish what you started.”

(For a split second he was reminded of a girl he'd dated in college giving him a similar speech once, although in a vastly different circumstance.) While his brain choked on its own associations, Molly's eyes turned pointedly down to the cloth-covered figure on the table between them.

John's gaze fell and landed heavily on the body that Molly now bared from the waist up. The dead woman was pale and unbreathing with a stitched-up Y-incision that trailed from her collarbone, around and beneath her breasts, and down her abdomen. She was cadaverous but hardly monstrous, nothing like the thing in his dream – but her eyes, now cleared of obstructions, both pointed dully at him.

Which meant, since she had looked at him when he'd been on the left side of her body yesterday, then her eyes have moved. Towards him, where he stood now, on the right side. Impossible, but this was really happening and – _she was looking at him_ – 

The thrumming surged and the simmering chill in him welled up in a dark, cold flood of power. John reacted as a ringing bell. Something reverberated and awakened inside him, unknown senses unfurling. 

“I must not leave it undone,” John heard himself say as his left hand reached unerringly towards the scalpel tray.

 

**TBC**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't kill me for the cliffhanger, the next part is on the way! :DDD


	7. 6B) - The Witness (or, The Price for Balance)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So.... Been a while. What did I tell you all about believing me when I tell you how long the wait will be between chapters? Anyway, this one was like pulling teeth, because this was the scene that I wanted to write when I started this whole fic. I wanted it to be PERFECT. And, well, this is what you get.
> 
> General **trigger warning** for this chapter, and for here on out in the story. It's a little bit of a spoiler, so I'm not putting it in the story tags. If you want the deets check out the footnotes before reading the chapter.

When John's fingers closed on the textured metal handle of the blade, he _knew_. The tide of epiphany washed away his headache, calmed his tattered nerves. He knew now that it was down to him. Just as in the operating room, or on the battlefield, or at Sherlock's side, there was no one else to do what he did as well as he did it, and it had to be done.

He brought both his hands up in front of him, stretched out his right arm to expose his wrist above the cuff. Yes, he knew this, knew the scalpel – no. 23, a bit large for his purposes, but it would do.

When he spoke, his voice was a swift, low flicker of sound under the harsh fluorescent lights. The words seemed to pour directly from the cold well in the very heart of him. Though he'd never spoken them before, they felt familiar and unexpectedly, profoundly true. (Captain John Watson, M.D., knew a vow when he gave one, and this was none other.)

“ **Life and Death obey the Balance. The price for Balance is blood.** ”

He brought the scalpel to bear with insanely steady fingers.

(Insane was right, he thought with different kind of clarity, because he knew what he had to do next. Worse, he knew he was going to do it.)

“ **With my blood I do uphold the Balance.** ”

The scalpel flashed white, a short, sure motion. John scored the skin of his right wrist, not deep enough to hit veins, not across the tendons – 

All the world went clamorous around him, light and sound assaulting him from all directions – except it wasn't light he could see, nor sound he could hear. A whole new sense dawned on him, and he lacked the vocabulary for it. It was like being deafened by light or blinded by a cacophony, if by blind and deaf one meant the extreme opposite. Yet at the same time, it seemed natural, like feeling loud music in one's chest and bones, or tasting a strong scent in the air.

This synesthetic paradigm shift did not disorient him at all. Rather (alarmingly), it _focused_ him, made his perception whole for the first time. As if somehow all his blurry edges had finally coalesced into stark and striking lines.

The chaos and bright flashes of color – it was Life, primordial and pure. From the dull gray static sound he heard and thought, _microbes_ , to the brilliant, jewel-toned pillars of music and sun-warm energy which he knew to be _human beings_ , all Living things teemed and changed. The psychedelic kaleidoscope of mixed sensations stole his breath, all the life of London sweltering madly around him.

At the same time – as if just beyond the light, or just over his shoulder – he was aware of a sonorous silence and vast darkness. If silence could ring out like a muting bell, and darkness itself could cast shadows, and all of it could flow like water around and even inside living things. Death, ever approaching, yet ever present. But it wasn't inherently frightening; on the contrary, it was cold and calm and deep, an endless glassy pool, all ponderous currents hidden in unfreezing depths. _Other_ things were hidden there, too, but their presence was vague, their forms obscured by the veil.

Black misty tendrils billowed and twisted, followed by a sudden rippling hush – a rest with an infinite fermata. A death in the hospital itself, had to be. John felt a wobble in the energies surrounding him, felt it like keeping his footing on uneven ground.

Right. Balance. Got it.

He understood, now that he saw himself with his new eyes. He was as self-contained as a spiral galaxy, arms of sound and silence wrapped around a blazing center, an event horizon at its core. Where living things pulsed in light, and dead things lurked in darkness, John stood... _between_ , somehow. The dark, cool power in him tied him to both at once, and neither in the end.

The shifting energies swayed, the Balance warping uneasily. Reminding him – yes, the dead woman.

For the first time, John perceived that inside this husk, some faint part of the human soul remained. The dim glow of life twined and twisted with sickly black veins – atonal, wrong, a perversion of Life and Death, neither one nor the other. The unnaturalness of it raised the hairs on his neck and down his arms. He wanted to turn away, repulsed, but he couldn't, not when beneath the discord a high, pure note cried out to him. It thrummed with terror, like the heart of something small and wounded and trapped. 

John remembered the sad horror of his nightmare – _her_ nightmare – and a wave of compassion washed over him. This poor woman lying inside a dead shell, not strong enough to escape. No wonder she was angry with him. She must be going mad as her soul, all that remained of her, decayed into something inhuman. Instinct told him that was exactly what she'd become when the process was complete, something _wrong_ , something _hungry_ , something that defied the Balance. And he...

(He was going to save her.)

He must uphold the Balance.

John thrust his bleeding right wrist over the dead woman's face.

“ **I share the spark and bid you wake** ,” he said.

(It was so strange, the way the words did _not_ feel strange even when he didn't know what he was about to say until he spoke. Almost as if the words existed outside of him, formless yet etched somewhere in eternity, waiting to be said. As if they _had_ to be said, and he was the only one who could.)

Three drops of his blood dripped down onto blued, chapped lips. A frigid surge of power, of _connection_ seared him. He _felt_ the woman's soul and saw, plain as day, how to excise the corruption.

So he did, with the precision of a crackshot surgeon. White energy, writhing electrical, crawled from his hands into the filaments of disease, singeing them away with strange, eerie harmonies.

Easy as blinking. Natural as breathing.

On the table, the corpse gurgled a massive inhalation, then coughed raggedly. Three squirming things, many-legged with pointy bits on either end, flew still-wriggling out of her mouth. _Centipedes_ , he thought, but they weren't, not really, because when they landed they steamed into acrid black smears of smoke, leaving no trace. Milky, deep-sunk eyes rolled in dry sockets as the dead woman dragged another rasping wheeze from the thickened air of the morgue. Her dry tongue swiped grotesquely at the blood smearing her lips.

“I wake and obeyyy,” she groaned, raw and dry and gravelly.

John's heart thundered in his chest, adrenaline igniting his veins. He lowered his right hand; his left absently dropped the scalpel and pressed the cut closed. He opened his mouth, because surely there were words for this as well, for what came next – except, then there were none.

Utterly at a loss, he blinked. His hand clenched painfully down on the cut. The sharp sting reinforced the fact that this wasn't a dream. This was... He had... _Christ_ , what had he done?

“John Hamish Watson.” 

Toneless and throaty, the voice made John startle violently – he'd forgotten Molly entirely – but when he looked at her, he froze, his breath stuck fast.

Her eyes were – well, just _gone_. Something had made a mask of her face, and a void stared back at him from behind it – infinitely remote and uncaring, but with a crystalline intelligence. John froze, dread and disbelief mingling.

“With this covenant, both Life and Death do bequeath unto you the powers of the Balance. Thus it is done, and thus I do bear witness,” Molly's mouth said in someone else's voice, but the finality in the emotionless words translated as well as a closing coffin lid.

The silence that followed probably only lasted a moment, but it seemed an age. John tried to cope with the enormity of his situation and _failed_ , his skeptic's mind unable and unwilling to process the evidence before his eyes – and burnt behind them, in ways he could not shut out by blinking. So he shoved the whole mess aside to sift through later. Nothing good would come of losing his head now. He might be mad, might be utterly insane, but he could deal with that when this was over.

A battle-calm settled over his shoulders and against his chest like a vest of Semtex. He finally breathed in, and then he said, “Who are you?”

“I am the Witness,” came the instant reply, but nothing further.

“What are you?” John tried again. “What do you want from me?”

“I am the Witness. I am an instrument of Balance. As are you, John Watson,” the thing (he could _feel_ it, now, a shuddering vacancy imposed where the sense of Molly should be) croaked through Molly's lips. “It is not what I want, for I cannot want. It simply is what you have promised, in return for your existence.”

“What do you _mean_?” John snapped, uncomprehending.

The chasms of her eyes regarded him distantly. “You made an oath on the last drop of your life's blood as it spilled from you. To that I did bear witness. You yet draw breath because of that oath, when you became death's own child. Now, with the second, you have fulfilled the first. If you are a man of your word, John Watson, you must uphold the Balance.”

John didn't remember making any such oath to begin with, but it seemed a moot point, for now. Instead, he asked, “How?”

Before the Witness could reply, the corpse on the slab gurgled noisily. John flinched, and the Witness cocked Molly's head dispassionately downwards, intent on the body that watched him – only him, as if the Witness wasn't right there and more worthy of gawping at than John could ever be.

“Sssorry to... hahhh, interrupt,” the corpse wheezed, looking sheepish, “but... hahhh.... I feel like... deatthh warmed over. Whhaaahhh-what happened?”

The expression on the woman's face was one John had seen on countless others, dazed and worried, like a coma patient waking to find themselves surrounded by strangers in a strange room with strange pains their only clue to whatever accident or disease had landed them in hospital. John supposed waking in a morgue would only compound that confusion.

He groped for something to say, settled on the truth. “Well, um. You. You died.”

The woman's brow crinkled. “Oh. I suuhhhpose that makes... hhnngg, sssenssse.”

“Do you feel any pain?” John asked a stupid, reflexive doctor question.

“Nnnoooo. Just... weird,” the dead woman said.

“Good,” John replied awkwardly, staring at the Y-incision and thanking God – or whatever – for that small mercy. At this point, he'd have patted his patient's hand or shoulder or something, made a reassuring gesture of some kind. He realized hysterically he had no idea what would reassure a dead person.

“If you would ask what you will of this soul, you must do so now,” the Witness intoned, “before you put her to rest.” When John looked up at it, it added, “The one who bears me would remind you there is not much time.”

John blinked and nodded. (So Molly _was_ still in there, somewhere.) He couldn't imagine Sherlock walking in just now, couldn't imagine trying to explain any of this when he himself didn't know what the fuck was going on. Whatever this was, he had to be quick about it.

Though really, when he thought about it, this was a perfect opportunity. Sherlock would be beside himself with joy at the chance to question the most important witnesses of murder: the victims themselves. Which meant John could hardly let it go to waste just because he was going mad. He had to pull himself together. He had to remember the case. 

John meant to ask, 'what's your name?' – but it came out as one of those bizarre commands from before. “ **Name yourself, spirit.** ”

“Aaabiigaaaill Caaiiitllyynnn Forrrssyttthhhe,” the body groaned, then coughed forlornly. “Callll me Abby.”

“Abby, then. You, um. You may have been murdered, actually,” John said awkwardly. He'd broken terminal news to patients before, but delivering post-mortem news was a new one. “Do you, ah... Remember that part?”

The dead woman made a lopsided, puzzled frown. “Yesss... now youuu mentionnn iiittt...”

“Tell me everything you can recall,” John said, trying his best to treat this like any other time he'd questioned someone for a case.

Her frown deepened in concentration. “III wasss... out for ahhhh run.”

“Where?” John interrupted.

“Near the paaarrkk,” Abby replied in her thick-tongued and gutteral way. “Caledonian... The clocktower.... sss'niiice, don't need a watch... I was runninnngg. Sssomeone came at me... hahhh, hhhit me on the heeead.”

“Did you see them?”

Her head wobbled back and forth weakly. “Nnno. Not thennn.”

“What happened next?”

“I... Blackkked out. Must've done, 'cause nexxt thing I knoowww, I'm... haaahhh, somewhere daaarrkk and... collldd. Waaaiiited ages.... hahhh... I wasss.... So ssscaaared,” Abby told him, her voice quavering and weak, confiding a painful secret.

Completely reflexively, John's unoccupied right hand laid itself over one of hers before he even thought about it. The cold, rubbery feeling of dead flesh registered through the odd (somehow soothing) buzz John felt through the touch. Her muscles twitched weakly beneath his fingers.

“And then?” John prompted. He didn't want to be rude, but at her plodding rate Sherlock would have time to get back from his phone call _and_ pick the lock before she ever got to the point.

“....Ahhh... A mannn came. Worrre a big caaape wittthh... a hhoooodd. Couldn't see his faaace. Had a torch... a real oonnne, fire and allll... Big room, with.... hahhhh, another giiirrll... Hhheee tallkked to her.”

John's heart thudded. A second victim? An accomplice? “What did he say to her?”

“Couldn't... hhheeaaarrr... Anndd thennn... He came oooverr... to meee...” Abby's face twisted, her eyes spearing him, and the fear in them was completely human. Her hand twitched again, sluggishly twisted to grip his. “Heee... slit my throooaaat... He... He hhhhaaad such lonngg, whhhite fingers...”

Oh, Christ, a dead woman was _holding his hand_. John shuddered despite himself and fought back the instinct to yank his hand away. Not her fault she's dead, he attempted to reason with himself, and it wasn't like it was catching. She'd been through a lot. This small comfort John could provide. Still, when he replied, he could hear the strain in his own voice.

“I'm so sorry. You don't remember anything else about him? Or the other girl?”

“I wasn't fffiniishhhed yet,” Abby replied, remarkably acerbic for a corpse. “The ottthherrr girrrl looked a messss... Didn't... Didn't sayyy anyythiiinnng. I think I remember dyinngg... Onlyyy I woke up, because thaaat guyyy was ssstill talkinngg... Like you werrre, jussst now... _those words_ , which IIII mmmussst ooobeeeyy...”

He didn't think it was possible, but the hairs of the back of John's neck raised another notch. “What did he say?”

Abby's eyes rolled and she gave a distressed groan. “Hnnngg, can't rememmmber... But... I woke up... And I felltt... sooo stranngge. Hee... He said it didn't... worrrkk... He wasss sooo upset... hahhhh... He leeefft... Annndd, I thought, buggerrr all thiiissss, and I left toooo...”

“And we found you at Caledonian park,” John said quickly, as if the idea of a murdered woman getting fed up with being murdered and just walking away wasn't utterly mad. “Do you remember how you got there? Where you walked from?”

“'Mmm afraid it'sss... alll a bit of aaahhhh.... blurrr, after thaaat... Liiike a dreeam, you knooww? But... Yoooouu woooke meee up...” Her features crumpled. “I'mmm sooo tiiiirred...”

“Yes, um. You've had a rough few days... But, that other woman. What did she look like? Did she say anything?”

“Nnnooo... Darrrrk hairr, pale, kind of chunnnky... She was naaaked, too, sheee mussst have beeeennn so coolld...” Abby said, but her voice was getting weaker, her breaths too shallow to give her enough air to speak loudly.

“So, she looked like you?” John asked.

Abby just wheezed forlornly and her eyes rolled up, her gray face slackening. John had to lean in to hear her sibilant sigh, “Pleeaase, jussst let me... diiieee...”

John had heard people beg for death before. It wasn't any easier to hear from someone already passed on – if anything, it was worse. Because Abby had already died, and even now was not free to move on. John could feel the strain of the imbalance, the worn edges of the woman's soul fraying, the insidious curls of _wrongness_ held at bay only by the energy John gifted her through his blood and the clasp of their hands.

“All right,” he told her softly. He hesitated. “Um. Thanks for your cooperation.”

“...nnnooo prooobblleemmm...” she gurgled faintly.

His bloodied left hand reached and he let it, trusting now in this instinct. His thumb traced a rust-colored squiggle on her forehead, a wormword of his own, and it meant _rest_ , it meant _release_ , it meant _peace_.

“ **Rest now, Abigail Caitlyn Forsythe. Thus I do restore the Balance** ,” John said.

The smear on her forehead seeped into the skin and disappeared. One of his ephemeral limbs, one of the dark tendrils of silence, enveloped the woman's tattered soul and _pulled_. The Balance rippled and shifted – or maybe _he_ did, because he was the Balance, or one with the Balance, and he wasn't sure if there was a difference. Then it didn't matter because something in him opened that he knew emptied into that infinite, calm abyss. She slipped into the darkness he offered – _through him_ – with a grateful rush.

The body on the slab finally stilled, one last breath hissing out. 

John drew a breath that hitched unsteadily halfway through. Then he realized he was still holding the dead woman's rubbery hand, and he hastily cast it away. He took a step back. Then another. Another, and he backed right into the empty exam table behind him. He slouched back, knees suddenly weak.

Christ. Just. Fucking _Christ_.

The Witness said in its eerie voice, “With the passing of the first soul, now does your Totem arise. Thus I do bear witness.”

“Wha- What?” John choked out, looking up from the body on the slab.

Molly - _Molly_ stared back at him, worry and caution in her earthly brown eyes. “Are you alright?”

John opened his mouth, lips and jaw working silently because he couldn't even _begin_ to explain how _not alright_ he was.

Molly winced. “Uh, sorry. Bit much to take in, I suppose? Here, um. Let's see to that cut. We've probably only got a mo before Sherlock gets back.”

She approached John with deliberate motions, like he was a spooked animal and not some – some kind of –

“I just – I, I'm a...” John said, his voice shaking even though his hands were completely steady.

“A necromancer,” Molly provided crisply. She lead him by the hand to the sink and started the taps. “Yes. Wash up. I'll grab the plasters.”

 

**TBC**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Trigger Warning:** Plot-related self-harm in a non-self-harmy way. I mean, it's not related to the mentality of self-harm, so I don't think it's too terribly triggering. But, fair warning for anyone very sensitive to these kinds of things.
> 
> I realize I am behind in replying to comments. This is because I fail at life and the internet all at the same time. Rest assured, your well-wishes and thoughts are MUCH appreciated. I love you all and treasure your feedback, I am just lousy at responses. THANK YOU FOR READING OMG and please continue letting me know what you think. :DDD <3


	8. Jealousy, Lies, and Manipulation (or, The Ends Justify the Means)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HOLY SHIT I UPDATED IN LESS THAN THREE MONTHS. Call it a win!
> 
> This chapter is a bit more light-hearted after the deep dark spookiness of late. I may have to take that pun tag out, because they just aren't happening enough to merit a tag. :( But otherwise, there is some actual pre-slash for you today! I know, it's taking me long enough. Personally, I love the slow-burn build up of things, so you'll all just have to suffer.

John stared at the water from the tap as Molly darted off to get the first-aid kit and unlock the doors. Wash up. Yes. That was easy. Soap, scrub, scrub, rinse. He was a doctor. He could wash his hands in his sleep. The blood came off as easily as it always did. He cleaned the cut thoroughly; this he also knew by rote.

He struggled for a grip on his sanity. Not so easy, especially with this new awareness of things. It hadn't gone away, yet. (As it would. As it had to... he hoped.) He didn't even need to turn to look at Molly to know where she was in the room, so much bright light and music bubbling at him. He could, in fact, feel everyone in the hospital, and the noise of it was terribly distracting.

“My gran was one, too,” Molly volunteered into the silence as she came back to him. “I... helped, I guess. Like just now. The Witness... likes me. It's easier – with people like me, I mean.”

“People like you? Are you a – n- necromancer,” John stumbled, having to force the word from his mouth. Christ. He dried off his hands, pressed the bunched paper towels to his cut as he faced her. 

“No, no. l, um. I'm a medium. I channel spirits, sense things, see auras – you know, that kind of thing,” she said quickly, dismissively. A faint flush tinted her cheeks. “Just don't tell Sherlock, please. Or Gr- I mean, Lestrade. They think I'm enough of a flake already.”

John just stared at her. Jesus Christ, this conversation could not be happening. She blushed deeper red, and fumbled to open the kit, then offered it up. John stared at her more, and she huffed.

“Come _on_ ,” she said, half annoyed and half pleading. “Like it's so hard to believe after you –”

“It's _all_ a bit hard to believe,” John replied, snappish. He dropped the towels into the bin and picked out a medium-sized Band-aid. His hand still wasn't shaking. “You're sure we didn't both...”

“What, hallucinate? Get dosed with some kind of drug?” Molly rolled her eyes. “I know Sherlock thinks we're both idiots, but you don't have to prove him right. You are a necromancer. You just woke your first corpse. You'll have to do that so often from now on, it'll get old hat.”

John froze in the act of putting on his Band-aid. “ _What?_ I have to – to keep this up?”

“It's – it's your _calling_ , John. It's not like you can just quit. I mean, you _felt_ it, right? The imbalance, the strain of keeping vigil so long? That's what will happen if you try not to,” she told him. Then she bit her lip and checked the clock on the wall. She grimaced. “Sherlock ought to be back any minute now. Explaining will take a lot longer than that, I can tell. Can you come over tonight, after I get finished here? I'm on until seven.”

Scowling, John didn't like her tone. He wasn't an idiot for doubting this whole thing; any sane, rational human being would. But he also couldn't deny the compulsions he'd had, or the obvious consequences of ignoring them, nor the more blatant effects of following them. He only wished he could. His whole understanding of the world had been inundated by the otherworldly in less than twenty-four hours. The phrase 'out of his depth' didn't really do the situation justice. If Molly could throw him a lifeline, he supposed he should be grateful and just take it.

“Okay,” John capitulated. He heaved a resigned sigh. “But we can't let Sherlock find out about... all this.”

He tossed the paper wrap in the bin, covering it with more paper towels. His sleeve covered the plaster, and thankfully there was no blood on his clothes. Okay. Most obvious evidence had been obscured, but he still felt like Sherlock would walk in and look at him and just _know_ , like he always did. And if John was having trouble believing all this when it was his own doing, if Sherlock found out, if Sherlock had any inkling – well, if the fiasco of Baskerville was any gauge, it would not be pretty.

“Right,” Molly agreed hurriedly, sighing with relief. “Alright, it's settled then.” A pause. “Well, actually...”

“What now?”

“I wasn't joking about your aura being huge, you know. I think the reason I didn't notice it when you came in is... well, I think it got here before you did,” Molly said, forehead wrinkling. “If you know what I mean.”

“Molly,” John said, holding his breath in a bid for patience. “I don't know if you noticed, but I really have no fucking clue what you mean about any of this. Seriously. So just... spit it out already. Please.”

“I mean that... You have an energy. Everyone does. It spreads out from us all like... light. Or something.” She shrugged. “And I can sense it, when someone's coming up behind me, or whatever. But... I think I've sensed your aura since I got here. Only it was faint, you know. I thought it might be... like residue, from the marks on the body. Only it got stronger and stronger, and I knew whoever it was was getting closer, but it was a bit like... when dawn's coming up and things get brighter little by little, and it's hard to tell just how much brighter until bam! You see the sun. That's when I looked at you, I mean.”

John blinked at her. “I'm the sun.”

“No! Yes, I mean,” Molly huffed and waved her hands. “I usually can only feel people in the same room as me. Farther out, if I know them pretty well and concentrate on them. But you... I felt you all morning.”

“I was at the flat, though,” John objected, before the penny dropped. Molly gave him a look, and he said, “Oh.”

“Few miles away, isn't it? As the crow flies?”

John winced at the phrasing (still a sore subject) and nodded vaguely. He wondered what his aura felt like. He wondered if the light/sound that he was feeling from everything was what Molly sensed as auras. He wondered if he'd ever thought he'd seriously be wondering things about auras at such length – wait, he knew the answer to that one: _no_.

“Is that... bad?” he asked.

“I don't know. It's nothing I've seen before,” she admitted carefully. “I think you'll need to learn to tamp it down a bit. There's... things, out there, John. Things that are drawn to power.”

John ignored the tingle that went down his back. He licked his lips and said, “What kind of things?”

Before she could tell him, the morgue door burst open and someone (Sherlock, it was Sherlock, John _knew_ , he could feel it) strode in.

Molly and John both froze for a split second, before suddenly Molly lunged forward, pushing her lips against John's. Luckily, he was the one with his back to the door, so his shocked, confused eyes were out of sight. The sound of clipped footsteps on the lino ceased immediately.

It was quite probably the most awful kiss John had ever had the misfortune to be involved in, no two ways about it. John had no idea what to do with his hands, but he'd raised them in his surprise. This left them sticking awkwardly out from his sides, somewhere between 'Look, Mum, no hands!' and 'Don't shoot!' Molly didn't seem to know what to do, either, her panicked breath hissing through her nose where it mashed against John's.

Molly finally pulled away. Her face was a deep crimson, and she couldn't quite meet John's eyes, but she leaned in close to whisper, “Just follow my lead, okay?” When John just blinked at her, she said in a louder voice, “So it's a date then. My place? Eight o'clock?”

John blinked at her more, and she gave him a pointed grimace. He coughed and managed, “Uh, yeah. Yes. It's... a date.”

“I do hope I'm not interrupting,” Sherlock drawled. He sounded odd. Stilted. Well, it wasn't often that Sherlock Holmes was surprised by anything.

John finally turned to face him. The mild, blank look on that angular face was as good as pole-axed gaping from anyone else. John felt his own cheeks heat belatedly under the scrutiny, and he looked away.

“N-no, um. Not interrupting,” Molly said hurriedly. She pushed a few stray strands of hair from her eyes and darted over to her work station. She grabbed a post-it note and scribbled on it, thrusting it at John when she was done. She beamed and batted her eyes. “My number. Call me for the address when you're ready to come over.”

John pocketed the note and tried not to feel the penetrating stare his flatmate had fixed upon him. “Um. Right. Will do.”

“If you're finished,” Sherlock snapped with unusually sharp condescension, “John, we're leaving. Lestrade's got us a lead.”

“Really? Where are we going?” John asked, relieved to have the normality – always a relative term – of a case on which to focus. He stepped away from Molly with a weak smile. (God, this was a farce. Sherlock would see through this excuse in a heartbeat.)

“Cemetery.”

“What? Why?”

Sherlock looked him up and down, his mouth crooked in a downward line. Still, he explained rapidly, as if nothing was amiss. “Because our dead woman was identified by the Met's fingerprint database. Her name is Zinia Edith Darren, arrested for shoplifting eight years ago. Lestrade notified her next of kin to confirm her body, and found out that she's just been buried, today. At a well-attended, open-casket funeral, at which no one noticed the body was not hers.”

Only by sheer stubbornness did John refrain from glancing at Molly, or the corpse. He knew his baffled shock showed plainly enough, but Sherlock would think it completely normal for John to be mystified by this news.

So... the dead woman had lied to him? Was that even possible? (No, he knew she couldn't lie; he'd held her soul.) But if not, how could Abby be Zinia? That did sound like an assumed name. But then he recalled Abby had said that there was another woman there, who looked somewhat similar to her. Similar enough to pass one victim for another, after an embalming and funerary make-over? Perhaps the perpetrator had switched the bodies?

John's brow knit. What would be the point of _that_?

“So, who'd they bury?” he asked aloud.

“No idea,” Sherlock replied flippantly. The unholy glee of an unsolved mystery made his eyes bright, his whole frame vibrating with barely-leashed energy. “We'd better hurry, else they'll crack open the coffin before we get there and half the evidence will be lost.”

John licked his lips but stopped when he tasted traces of Molly's lipstick. He wanted to scrub at his mouth with the back of his hand. He didn't; the jig would definitely be up, as far as their cover story went, if he started behaving like a kid afraid of catching cooties.

“Right. Best go, then.” He looked back at Molly, who was still a bright red. “Um. I'll... call you later?”

“Right, um,” Molly agreed, flustered. She gave a little awkward wave. “Can't wait. Bye!”

Sherlock was frowning at the pair of them, and John didn't wait around for things to get worse. Briskly, he stepped past Sherlock and out into the hallway. After a beat, he caught up with John, not even having to hurry with his stupid long legs. The door closed behind them, leaving them walking in an empty corridor. John left the silence between them alone.

Of course, Sherlock didn't. “So. Molly Hooper.”

“No,” John said, refusing to look at him. “We're not talking about this.”

“It is a bit of a surprise,” Sherlock went on, as if John hadn't spoken. “Because half an hour ago, you were well content to hide in my shadow where she was concerned. And she, it seemed, was much more interested in furthering her acquaintance with dear Greg of the Yard. Yet now the two of you have a date and she's throwing herself into your arms _in a morgue_. It seems... a bit _not good_ , doesn't it?”

“...I dunno,” John said evasively. To be honest, he hadn't thought of the blatant holes in their deception – it had all happened too quickly, and besides, John was struggling with larger issues.

Not the least of which was how he could feel Sherlock's – aura? – soul? – life energy? – as they walked. It was decidedly different from Molly's. More energetic, brassier, darker and brighter all at once, more intense and somehow more... _known_ , like John had always sensed some of it, even before he'd realized he had been doing so.

(It felt... intimate, in a way Molly's wasn't, nor any of the other noisy blips on his brain-radar. He had the feeling that where their energies aligned, there was the touch/taste of velvet/chocolate, heady as wine; it was like breath on his skin, and John had to stop thinking about it because it was seriously very distracting.)

Sherlock made a derisive sound in his throat. “Please, John, you really need to try harder. Why did Molly kiss you? It was quite obvious neither of you were enjoying it. Why are you going to her home? That is _not_ your typical first-date M.O.”

John gritted his teeth against the words, _'None of your business, Sherlock Holmes.'_ There were times when he really hated having such a perceptive man for a friend. (It was a good job that the Army had made John a lot harder to embarrass, or the casual references to his porn tastes and wank habits alone would have landed Sherlock a black eye in the first week of their moving in together.) But rather than snapping, John struck upon inspiration instead.

“Well. You're right,” John said, voice clipped, like he was grudgingly parting with the truth. “We're not attracted to each other.”

“Obviously,” Sherlock interjected quickly – and gave an almost silent sigh that sounded just a bit like relief. John glanced sidelong at him, but Sherlock was watching the far end of the hall. John dismissed it; Sherlock was just glad he could still flirt his way into the morgue.

He then proceeded to invent wildly, “She wanted to make Greg a bit jealous. He's, um. Slow on the uptake, I guess, so she thought if we, um, 'dated' once or twice, put on a bit of show in front of... you, you know, for verisimilitude, so you'd corroborate it to him if he asked... Well, when our 'relationship' doesn't work out, Greg will – if he's got any sense at all – make a move.”

Sherlock stopped short, and John turned back to raise an eyebrow at him. He appeared both puzzled and cross as he cocked his head skeptically at John.

“And this trite ploy, you think it will work? Jealousy, lies, manipulation? Is that romantic?”

John's other eyebrow rose, too, at the force of the questioning. “Well. It might work.” If life were a teen sitcom from the 1990s, anyway. “And if it doesn't, it's not like they're together _now_. No harm, no foul.”

“The ends justify the means,” Sherlock replied flatly. He scowled at John. “Not your usual M.O. at all. There's something else going on here.”

John tried desperately to keep his face blank and his body language natural. “No, there's not. It's just a silly matchmaking lark, Sherlock.”

And he was going to have to text this all to Molly and hope she didn't get too angry over the whole thing. Christ, he hoped she _did_ fancy Greg, otherwise this could get even more awkward. And if Greg fancied Molly – and John remembered the ill-fated Christmas party and Lestrade's reaction to Molly in her evening gown, so it was _possible_ – this might actually do them both a good turn.

“Why didn't she ask me?” Sherlock asked, somewhere between petulant and honestly puzzled. “Wouldn't that be more believable, since she does actually fancy me?”

“That's exactly why she wouldn't ask you,” John said, embellishing a bit with a huffy sigh. “Besides, you wouldn't have anything to do with this kind of nonsense, would you? You're not really Mr. Approachable.”

Sherlock blinked, hesitated. “I'm approachable.”

“No, you're not,” John insisted, teasing now and unable to stop the small grin that came to his lips. “You're all looming and aloof and dramatic angles that could poke someone's eyes out. Besides, Lestrade might actually hesitate to punch _me_.”

It struck John suddenly how surreal this conversation actually was. Christ. What was his life? In less than an hour, he'd _fucking raised the dead_ , had a psychic awakening, and now he was acting out some kind of soap-opera plot to keep anyone finding out, and joking with his best friend. This kind of thing didn't have to real people with real lives.

He cleared his throat, glancing over his shoulder towards the end of the hall, which was still deserted.

“Never thought you'd take five from a case to discuss sentiment,” John said in a likely transparent attempt to get off the subject. “Weren't we in a hurry?”

Instead of a scoff and a flurry of motion towards the nearest exit, Sherlock remained silent. John looked back at him to find pale eyes fixed directly on his. Sherlock stared at him, stared _hard_ (with his aura a jumble of color/sounds that passed too mercurially for John to really sort out) with a completely unreadable expression. John fought the urge to twitch or look away. Eye contact, maintain eye contact because liars don't.

The pause stretched. John began to wonder exactly what Sherlock was staring at, and Sherlock moved. His aura moved, too, a slinking glissando and the sensation of gentle ripples on John's skin. He felt his breath catch in his throat, startled –

And more startled when Sherlock took a step closer, right into John's space, with his arm up and reaching. A deft thumb pressed to the corner of John's lips, stroked down across the lower one. A sharp frisson shot through him, his heart kicking blood straight to his cheeks. John's eyes widened, his mouth parted to gasp even as Sherlock dropped his hand away.

John backpedaled a step. “What're you – ”

“Lipstick smear,” Sherlock cut in. He didn't move away, kept his gaze on John. Something in his eyes flickered, gone too quickly for John to parse, but the pacing of Sherlock's psychic melody had gone chaotic. “Bit too much verisimilitude if you want to avoid a jealous punch in the face.”

“Ah,” John said. He swallowed, his throat gone suddenly dry. “Um. Thanks, I guess.”

A small, secretive smile curled Sherlock's lips, his eyes narrowing minutely. In a low, smug rumble, he said, “What are friends for?”

And then he spun on his heel and set a course for the nearest exit. John stared after him, dazed for a moment. What had _that_ been about? Well. Today was just chock-full of oddities. Sherlock being bizarre and _Sherlock_ about a non-existent romantic plot hardly even rated a blip on the weird-shit-o-meter.

“John! Come on!” Sherlock shouted from up the corridor.

Shaking his head, John had to quick-march to catch up. (And if his own fingers rose to touch the place where Sherlock's thumb had been, no one was looking at him to see it.)


	9. The Thirteenth Crow  (or, Magic Death Tingles)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait, again. For the record, I now have two jobs - one full-time, one part-time - and as such it is extrememly hard to find time to write. If regular updates are a prerequistite to you reading a fanfic, you are in the wrong place. >_>;
> 
> That being said, this chapter is a bit longer than usual. Back to the creepy, my dears. ;D

John collected himself on the cab ride over to the cemetery. It was a long ride, and he had a lot of collecting to do. It helped that he no longer had that terrible headache to distract him. (What he did have to distract him were all the singing, humming, thrumming lives of London. The din was somewhat muted now, like he was adjusting to the background noise, but it was all still there. He couldn't make sense of any of it, so he decided to pointedly ignore it all as best he could.)

(Which was actually really difficult, especially since he was less than a meter from Sherlock and he could feel Sherlock's aura/noise almost like a cat that kept brushing up against his ankles.)

So. Necromancy. It was real. He'd just performed it in front of a witness – and a Witness, whatever that was – and he'd got a stinging cut on his wrist to prove it.

Christ. He'd _spoken with a dead woman_. He'd... fixed her, whatever was going wrong in her soul. He'd felt her fear, so he'd helped her. In her last moment when he'd wrapped her soul in his, to guide her to the dark horizon within him, he'd felt her final gratitude as a wave that crested over him before she gently receded into the Great Beyond.

John couldn't deny how _right_ it had felt. It was something he knew right down to his bones, and just as much a part of himself. He hadn't passed out from shock. Molly had stuck him with a plaster (and a kiss that was easily one of the most mortifyingly awkward experiences in his whole life) and a promise for an explanation.

And the world went on.

Oblivious beside him, Sherlock blazed through the internet on his phone, riding high on the frenetic buzz of a case. (Waves of yellow-red arpeggios danced along his aura, drummed against John's sixth sense.) One that had gone a bit pear-shaped, if not by John's myriad revelations in the morgue, then certainly by the fact that Sally Donovan was _right_ about the zombies.

He scrubbed his hands over his face and stared out the window. A lot of people would be stuck in hysterical denial. The thing about it was, though, that John at his core was a pragmatist, a realist. There was no _point_ to denying what he saw with his own eyes, or railing against the inevitable. It was a waste of time, and time was of the essence, in his experience. Instead of denying, instead of freaking out, John Watson adapted. It'd been a valuable trait, especially since coming to live at the flat on Baker Street.

So. Adapting now.

As far as epiphanies went, it was not the best news. Life and Death itself were at his beck and call, living dead creatures were possible, and so were other things. Molly's mention of these 'things' raised the hair on the back of John's neck. What were they? He had no idea how far this magic nonsense extended – were wizards and elves and dragons all true, too? Or vampires and werewolves and ghosts, like that ridiculous show on the telly? Or, or Hell, God, angels, and demons? Or _all_ of it?

He breathed out slowly, refusing to speculate himself into hysteria. 

“Your headache's got better,” Sherlock told him, apropos of nothing.

“Uh,” John cleared his throat. “Molly had some ibuprofen. Finally kicked in, I guess.”

As he saw it, he only had two options.

The first was to conclude that this was all some kind of obvious delusion – a shared one since Molly was in on it, too. If that were the case, no doubt Sherlock would notice the telltale signs of it shortly and have Mycroft put him in the loony bin. The end. John could only hope that Sherlock would visit now and again with biscuits from Mrs. Hudson's kitchen.

The second option was to accept that, okay, he had never planned for this to be his – what had Molly said? – _calling_ , but here he was, a newly-minted master of all things deceased, passed on, and six feet under. Or something. He was a necromancer, whatever that meant. Molly seemed to have some of the answers. He just hoped her gran had imparted to her a lot of details, because this was just mad. _Using his blood_ to talk to dead people, feeling _auras_ , having an entourage of birds (they were still following the cab, but John wasn't going to start staring again) – the whole situation was crazy, even if John himself hadn't succumbed, yet.

“At least it stopped raining,” Sherlock said, peering out the window. “Though I suppose it made the funeral very maudlin. People do like that sort of thing.”

John glanced at him, a bit disbelieving. Sherlock did not make idle comments on the weather. “Yeah.”

Sherlock must have heard his skeptical tone, because he looked over at John with an expression both guileless and nonchalant. John asked 'what are you on about?' with his eyebrows, and Sherlock frowned lightly.

“Something wrong?” he asked.

“Are you – are you trying to make small talk?” John said instead.

Sherlock froze in that hand-in-the-biscuit-tin way he had whenever someone called him out on his sillier behaviors. But instead of denying it (like he did about his coat collar and the violin and the prayer-pose on the couch), he just cleared his throat and said, “You have been more taciturn than usual today. I suppose nature abhors a vacuum.”

John snorted. “Yeah, well, just thinking.”

Sherlock smirked. “My, the tables have turned. Is this business with Molly really worth that much effort? You seem rather... intent.”

“What? No, no it's not –” John said before he thought, and then kicked himself mentally for giving up such a perfect alibi. Perhaps it wasn't too late. He sighed like he was giving up and said in a confiding tone, “I just don't know if I can pull it off, being such a bad liar and all. Lestrade'll see right through me.”

“Much as I am, right now,” Sherlock put in. He looked a bit smug, but mostly long-suffering when he went on, “I despair of your dissembling skills, John, but points for effort. At least now you made the attempt to blend in a truth, so I know you've been listening to my advice – just, perhaps, it was the worst thing to point out whilst also lying badly enough not to need it confirmed explicitly.”

John rolled his eyes and sighed in a flat tone, “Fine, yes, I will never fool you, oh great liar king.”

There was a pause, and John had just about picked up the thread of his thoughts before the interruption, and the Sherlock spoke again.

“What _are_ you thinking about, then?”

“Nothing,” John huffed. He crossed his arms and faced the window again.

“Clearly it's not, or you'd have told me already,” Sherlock badgered.

“It's not to do with _you_ , Sherlock,” John snapped. He spun round to glare at Sherlock's off-guard look. “Deduce it, if you're so upset that I still have privacy in my own mind – but do it quietly because I am trying to think.”

Sherlock blinked owl-eyes at him, and for a moment John almost felt bad – but Sherlock just pressed his lips together in a scowl and turned to look out his own window. John eyed him warily for another moment, just to make sure he wasn't going to start up again. (Sherlock's aura now had a mournful gray-brown undercurrent that began scratching against his other sense like itchy wool.)

(Jesus Christ, that was weird.)

It was all fucking weird, though.

Honestly, it was abnormal how _normal_ Abby was. She might have been a reanimated corpse, but other than that she'd been one of the more cooperative witnesses John had had to interview.

If John had ever had cause to think about what talking to a dead murder victim would be like, he would have expected more bitterness, more anger. Everyone knew how vicious spirits were, right? Thousands of films had been made on the subject. They were supposed to be bloodthirsty and terrible, unable to rest until their murderer or, more often, whoever was unlucky enough to encounter them was dead, too.

But Abby hadn't been like that. Either she was the most well-adjusted dead woman in the world, or there was something about being dead that calmed nerves in general. John suspected it was the latter, because God knew he'd seen enough violent deaths and murder victims that the vengeful dead ought to have outnumbered the living, if that was all it took. Whatever the cause, though, it was as if being dead hadn't changed her, hadn't made her cryptic or spooky, inasmuch as a bleedin' _zombie_ wasn't spooky. No, those bits had come from the Witness.

Now, the Witness - what the hell was _that_? John had to shiver just at the memory of it, the strange vacancy of its presence – even the way Death felt wasn't the same. The difference between mere silence and total void. The entity was in no way human, that much John could tell. (Molly's eyeless face likely would feature prominently in his nightmares from now on, thanks ever so.)

And then there was the Balance. John didn't know what that even was, other than this instinctual, gut-feeling he got. There had to be more to it than that. There had to be _rules_ , didn't there? How could he keep a vow if he didn't know what it entailed?

To top it all off, apparently there was another necromancer in town, too. One who was definitely not on the level, because John could not believe that anyone who was supposed to uphold the Balance or whatever should be running around murdering hapless joggers in order to play a game of musical coffins.

But had that even been the point? Abby – or Zinia, as the case may be – had said that her murderer had claimed 'it hadn't worked,' whatever he'd been trying to accomplish. And now that he thought about it, there were more discrepancies between the tale Abby told him and the physical evidence. She'd said her throat had been slit, and that was how she died. But Molly's autopsy showed that the woman had died of kidney failure, and the incision on her neck had been made postmortem. 

There again, John only had two options. The first was to think Abby was lying. He had no logical reason to believe that was impossible, but that same gut-feeling that had been guiding him since they'd found her body yesterday told him that she _couldn't_ lie, not to him. Sherlock detested gut-feelings, because they so often led investigators to ignore the facts, and those now seemed to make absolutely no sense when compared to Abby's story. 

The second option was to assume she _was_ telling the truth. Even if John's instincts were completely off the mark, why would a dead woman lie? What could she possibly have to lose? But if she wasn't lying, how the hell was her story even possible?

John had no answer by the time they turned and passed through the impressive cemetery gates, and as soon as they did John felt his damn spidey-sense leap to the front of his mind.

It was a bit like passing through a waterfall, a sensation of force and cleansing, and once on the other side, the pyschic noise of the city faded into near total silence. A vibration filled the space, clear and calm, a serene beacon. This ground knew its purpose, its place in the Balance – and John knew it, too.

Pure ground (holy ground? Was he going to have to be religious now?), _burial_ ground, something so attuned it naturally acted to send the dead to easy sleep. Soothe the troubled souls, offer peace like a balm to the wounded.

(And _familiar_ , yet again. That early morning in Grimpen, John had let his feet carry him wherever they would. A walk before breakfast had meant he wouldn't have to talk to Sherlock after the evening before, and then he wouldn't have to face this knot of angry hurt in his chest. There'd been a lot of it, too much for John to feel comfortable examining, and it had been a struggle to breathe around it – until, suddenly, it hadn't. Then he'd actually had a look around him, and he'd found himself standing in an old churchyard with headstones and greenery. And... he'd stayed. Because it was peaceful. He'd found a likely spot and sat and breathed and went over his notes until Sherlock had found him.)

Huh.

John sat up straighter in his seat as the taxi drove them deeper in, down a maze of lanes that twisted in between trees and headstones. There were sparks nestled in the grass, too, and odd mists, and darting shadows. John waited for Sherlock to say something, to talk about science and phosphorous vapors and how their ignorant ancestors associated such phenomena with the souls of the dead, or some kind of devilry. But Sherlock said nothing, and John blinked hard as a more energetic ball of light streaked past his window like a white-gold comet. As its tail dissipated, John swore he heard the tinkling laughter of a child.

He jerked his face away from the window, staring down at his knees.

Right. Right, so. Souls it was, then. Perfect.

They arrived at a plot not terribly far from the Dissenter's Chapel, panda cars flashing their lights and uniformed cops in reflective vests standing in front of the police tape. They paid the cabbie and sauntered up to the tape. Well, Sherlock sauntered; John tried to walk normally, like he wasn't glimpsing shades and glimmers of things that existed beyond the ken of normal people.

The uniformed officers must have been informed ahead of time, because they let the pair of them pass with no questions – in fact, had John not been dealing with his issues, he might have found their averted eyes and obvious desire to remain anonymous to the razor-tongued consulting detective rather humorous. As it was, he fell into step just behind him as they paced up a soft rise between rows and rows of grave markers.

As small crowd was gathered around a fresh grave, the tarp that had been meant to cover it cast off to the side and rippling in the chill breeze. Lestrade stood beside it, arguing with an older, somber-suited man with salt-and-pepper hair and a rigidly neat beard.

“– entirely against protocol,” the man said, his pompous tone rife with suppressed agitation. “There are _laws_ against this.”

“I have a warrant, actually,” Lestrade informed him, in a tone that implied it was not the first time he'd brought that point up. “It's all very lawful, and rather than have you fill in the grave and then have to dig it up again in the morning –”

“Ah, Lestrade,” Sherlock interrupted with perfect aplomb, stepping up to the pair of them and giving the other man a once-over. “Some trouble with the funeral director?”

“Oh, perfect,” Lestrade muttered, scrubbing his face. “You _would_ show up now.”

“You asked me to hurry,” Sherlock reminded him mildly, hands in his coat pockets and rocking on the balls of his feet. “What seems to be the hold up?”

John stood rigidly beside him and just a step behind, trying not to attract attention. He felt a strange humming of sorts again, much as he had at the first crime-scene, but it wasn't... wasn't _wrong_ , per se. It was something he recognized as _not natural_ , though, the difference between a river and a canal, or radio static and a radio station. The hum seemed to emanate from the open grave to his left. Not shocking, but it triggered his uneasiness to rise sharply nonetheless.

It didn't help that the calming influence of the cemetery did nothing about the bright noise of all the people with whom he was now pressed in close quarters. The discordant meshing of all the different auras was somehow more grating than it had been in the city – whether it was proximity, or the juxtaposition of so much noise against the backdrop of stillness that did it, John felt his headache begin to creep up on him again.

Or maybe that was from the way that the crowd around them seemed to be growing. Except most of the newcomers may as well have been smoke and shadows, blearily clustered at the edge of vision. Even as John tried not to watch them assemble, somehow these formless folk gave every indication that they were watching _him_.

“The 'hold-up',” the man in the suit said testily, “is that you people with the yard ought to know that exhumations are only done in the early hours of the morning, not in broad daylight! The visitors here wish to honor their loved ones in peace and tranquility, not with you people barging in and opening caskets right in front of them.”

“And we have a possible homicide and body-snatching case to investigate,” Lestrade cut in firmly. “It may be irregular, but if we're correct and the woman you claim to have very nearly buried is actually in St. Bart's mortuary, you've interred the wrong one.”

“Difficult for the family of the Zinia Darren to honor her in peace, in that case,” Sherlock added, shaking his head in wholly false sympathy. “Imagine the lawsuit, especially if they find out you refused to cooperate with the investigation into how her body was so egregiously misplaced.”

That made the man hesitate. He focused on Sherlock with palpable ire. “Who are you?”

“Sherlock Holmes,” Sherlock supplied, not offering his hand to shake, but then he never did. “This is my associate, Dr. John Watson. And you are?”

“Nicholas Haw, Director of Services,” came the stiff reply. Mr. Haw adjusted his tie's impeccable Windsor knot and said, “What do you mean, lawsuit?”

“Well, you know, people are rather particular about who is buried in a plot with their loved one's name on the headstone,” said Sherlock succinctly. “You somehow lost the body nearly two days ago, put a stranger in her place for the funeral, and then planted said stranger like a shallot amongst the tulips. I imagine all that would incite any family to visit their lawyers.”

While Haw began to sputter, Sherlock cast his gaze down into the hole, where the casket sat in a cement grave liner. He sniffed and speared the man with a narrow gaze.“It's a good job the police caught you when they did. You haven't even put the top on that cheap sectional liner – though I'm sure the family thought they were getting the solid box, at the fee you charged for it.” Abruptly, he faced the DI again and said, “Lestrade, do you know, I doubt this qualifies as an exhumation at all, as they haven't even begun to bury the casket. Clearly, they've just set it down for a not-particularly-eternal rest.”

John, despite everything, had to bite back a laugh, which he disguised as a cough. Lestrade heard it for what it was and gave him an unimpressed look – and Sherlock half-turned to him with an unabashed smirk. (His aura reached bright gold tendrils towards John, passing over him like breath and honey –)

(– and John's stomach gave a startled, pleasant flip because, _oh_ , wasn't that lovely –)

“I – I don't see how we can be held accountable for some – some _vandal's_ actions,” Mr. Haw stammered out. He seemed to recollect some of his haughtiness as he added, “But as you say, you have a warrant. We will cooperate, of course.”

“Excellent,” Sherlock said, and immediately dismissed the supercilious man from his attention by turning to Lestrade. “Don't move anything yet, I need to examine the casket in situ, so to speak.”

“What, are you just gonna jump down – in there?” Lestrade finished jerkily when Sherlock did just that.

The tall detective made an impatient gesture with one hand poking up above the lip of the hole. “Come on, John. We haven't all day.”

John flicked his gaze around at the swarm of spirits that now surrounded the site, felt the pressure of their insubstantial eyes, and decided that ducking down to hide in a fresh grave wasn't the worst option. He awkwardly clambered in, trying to find a place to stand that wasn't on top of the casket. Graves were really very narrow, apparently. He overbalanced and tipped heavily onto the top of the casket, palms down.

It was like completing a circuit of some kind. Humming energy trilled through him in a burst of grayish light – and then it fled. John had a strange feeling, a mental impression of _collapse_ , like an elaborate house of cards folding at the touch of a heavy hand.

“John, mate! You alright?” Lestrade said from where he crouched on the balls of his feet on the edge above.

“Fine, fine,” John said, biting back his frustrated irritation. (He had no idea what was going on, and all these magical death tingles were getting old fast. On top of that, he had fallen over like a prat. What a fabulous day he was having, really.) He pushed himself up, feet finding the narrow margin of free space between the casket and the cement grave liner.

Sherlock, of course, just looked put-upon, because of course _he'd_ been perfectly graceful about his descent. “I do hope you haven't contaminated any evidence, John.”

“If I have, maybe next time you'll think twice before you ask me down into a crowded grave, then,” John snarked back.

Sherlock didn't respond, just began to carefully circle the casket, bending low over it with his pocket magnifier and making low 'hmm' noises now and again. When he came round to John's side, he ended up herding the doctor along – there wasn't room for both of them, really – until they'd made it the whole way around.

(Twice John had touched the earthen walls with his hands to maintain his balance, and each time he did it was like the earth was touching him back, solemnly welcoming.)

“Is there a reason I'm down here?” John asked.

“Yes,” Sherlock said without looking. He bent low, taking something out of his coat pocket and beginning to fiddle with something on the end of the casket, his body screening the process from view.

“What are you doing, Sherlock?” Lestrade asked wearily.

“Releasing the locking mechanism,” came the flat reply. “Won't take a mo'. Get us some gloves, will you?”

“Oi, who told you you could do that? And why do you have a bloody coffin key?” Lestrade demanded.

“It's just an Allen wrench,” Sherlock scoffed, not addressing the other point of the objection. He straightened up. “Still waiting on those gloves.”

Grumbling, Lestrade handed down two pairs of blue nitrile gloves, and they snapped them on briskly. At a nod from Sherlock, John opened his end of the casket – it was one of those with the partitioned lid – while Sherlock opened the other.

The stench of death hit like a putrid hammer to the gut, and John gagged, turning his head and covering his mouth and nose with his sleeve. He had a moment of churlish satisfaction when he saw how green Sherlock's face had gone, but otherwise the man's face remained impassive.

“Oh good god,” Lestrade choked. “How the _hell_ was this an open-casket funeral?”

The corpse revealed, laying on the billowy pink satin, was quite a gruesome sight. She wore a soiled, bloodstained neon-green tracksuit, and her wide-open eyes had gone horribly milky and sunken. Her throat gaped open, a grisly red tear in her neck that went deep enough to show the bones behind her severed trachea and esophagus. Her skin had begun to take on the greasy sheen of rot, features distorted and puffy with the start of bloat.

“Yeah, she doesn't look anything like her,” John agreed dryly.

Violence and decay aside, it was true. The body in the morgue was a slightly short, slightly plump white woman. The body in the coffin was quite obviously a tall, fit, black woman with short, chunky dreadlocks.

_Hello, Abby,_ John thought. She _hadn't_ lied to him, then. 

“That is not the woman we interred,” Mr. Haw – who had been watching the proceedings with mute dismay until now – volunteered vehemently. John looked up to see him pressing a handkerchief to his mouth and nose, gone very pale under his beard. “My Lord, what has happened? How – I – I don't understand.”

Sherlock didn't respond, just bent low and began his observation dance.

“No care at all taken with the body. She hasn't been embalmed or prepared in any way, not with this level of decay, and not a trace of formaldehyde in the air. And the mode of death: she was slaughtered like an animal – bled, too. These bloodstains here, here, and here,” Sherlock pointed them out on the mess of the tracksuit, “made by a curved edge, rather large, too. Some kind of bowl or other receptacle. They wanted her blood for something.”

He leaned farther over and started to tug her top up from her waist. The skin of her belly, distended from the pressures of decay inside her guts, was otherwise unmarred.

“No –,” 'wormwords,' John almost said aloud but caught himself, “brandings.”

Sherlock tilted his head, a puzzled frown on his lips. “John, take a closer look at her.” He had already moved on to the casket itself, fingers probing the satin lining.

John huffed out a breath, and took another deeper one through his mouth to mitigate the scent. He leaned down, examining the wound on her neck with careful fingers. He half-expected her eyes to turn towards him, but they didn't. No, this body was nothing but an empty vessel, Abby's soul passed beyond the dark veil.

But there was... something else. A prickle of recognition started somewhere under John's skin, an anxious flutter in his belly. _Quickening_ , he thought apropos of nothing – and he looked down to the woman's exposed midriff.

The skin there shifted. Movement beneath. Every hair on his body stood on end and he froze, staring. The flesh jerked twice, quick like a _tap-tap_ against the internal walls of muscle, and then –

The skin distended horribly, stretching taut and nearly translucent against a small, bony form beneath, and John couldn't breathe at all, couldn't get his voice to function, just gaped as the _thing_ inside Abby's body writhed and struggled, and finally a sharp point pierced the skin, releasing a fresh wave of stench.

John gagged, fighting his gorge, as the struggling thing tore a larger hole, stuck a gore-streaked head through and – 

“John, what –” Sherlock's voice broke and stopped.

There was a sucking sound as the black-feathered thing wrenched itself out of Abby's innards, boney feet leaving messy tracks all over the woman's belly, flapping strips of entrails from its bedraggled wings to splatter horrifically against the satin.

A crow, John realized blankly. But _not a crow_ , because its beak was bone white and its legs were skeletal beneath the layers of dark blood, and its feathers seemed motheaten, dessicated, and patchy in places over hide that seemed almost mummified. It cocked its head, leveled at him a dry, empty socket where its eye should have been.

( _Mine_ , John thought, his other sense thrilling and leaping, claiming and rejoicing, because _this was his, and a part of him_.)

Complete silence reigned for a shuddering moment.

Then the crow spread its wings and launched itself into the air, screaming.

“ _Jawwwn!_ ” it cried, wheeling up into the sky. “ _Jawwwn!_ ”

John's eyes followed it up, where a sudden flock of a dozen more joined it in flight, greeting it with a guttural chorus.

Then his eyes rolled up and he sank back against the welcoming earth of the grave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love each and every comment and kudo I recieve, even if I don't respond. Thanks for reading, and I hope you'll let me know what you think - encouragement is what keeps me going! <3


	10. Harvest (or, a Harrowing Conversation)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Um, in anyone's still reading this fic, thanks for your patience. :D I know it's been months, but I've had some RL things - computer virus, then a change of jobs, and summertime shenanigans. If it makes you feel better, this chapter tops out at just over 10 pages on my OpenOffice file, which makes it the biggest per-chapter page-count yet.
> 
> The other title for this chapter should be "The Chapter That Wouldn't Die," because every time I got to the place where I'd thought I'd end it, it didn't feel natural. And then everyone just _kept talking_ , I was like OMG STFU. Dialogue heavy chapter is dialogue heavy.

John had fainted before. It was a rare thing – usually only after literal days on his feet in surgery, sewing people back together and racing the clock to get to them all but there was no way _to_ get to them all. Triage was a bitch. Used to be, every once in a while he'd do something like a forty-nine-hour stint, have a cup of coffee or tea on a brief break, and then keel right over when he'd move to stand.

Embarrassing at best, was fainting, and a liability at worst. It hadn't happened since he'd moved to Baker Street, and now was a hell of a time for this tendency to rear its narcoleptic head.

The thing was, John was... well, not _good_ at fainting, but certainly experienced. He knew the lightheadedness, the rushing sound and the oddly separate fields of vision that gave the impression of tunnels, but then came darkness. He was firm on that point, surely.

So it was rather surprising when all that happened, except he was still quite awake. John was still standing, leaning against the muddy wall of a grave with a wiry arm like a steel band pressing against his chest and arms, holding him up –

(But he... soared on cold wind, below him hills and trees and tiny rows of stones. And there, a tiny hole, tiny _him_ – )

And he blearily looked up, vision half obscured by Sherlock's face looming above him. Sherlock was speaking, his words so far away – and John turned his head to look past Sherlock's tight expression and the muted panic in his eyes (and the noisy colors that splintered off his aura in jarring waves) – 

(And John whirled above, the rush of flight, of freedom, power surging, still building, in his veins, and a scream tore from his throat, a call, a summons – )

He heard the crow (himself … and not himself, somehow) cry as he looked up again to the top of the grave. Faces, forms, sparks, and shadows clustered thickly around the rectangular edge. Every single one was turned and bent and staring at him. They were dead, he knew, and they looked it. Their grotesque, grey, sunken features and cloudy eyes, men, women, children, and over all the notes of _anticipation_ hanging in the air like a symphony tuning up –

Amongst the crowd, John saw Mr. Haw standing perfectly still and upright, staring down at him dispassionately with the dark and hollow eyes of the Witness.

(Beneath him, the crowd around the open grave teemed larger, larger still. Souls rushed in from every corner of the graveyard, whispering, and the wind gusted their need to him, the thing they all sought, which only he could provide.

And he would, because that was his _purpose_. Here he felt it in the rushing wind and the solidity of earth. He cried again as the cyclic energies of Life and Death coalesced inside him, a crescendo rising to its peak –)

“ _John_ ,” Sherlock's voice reached him finally. Desperate urgency colored not only John's name but the air around them, laced with a gold mesh like a net which snared John and drew him back from the brink –

( – And John the crow flapped his wings to check the flood of power, holding the last call clamped in his beak –)

“John, you're safe, you're not there anymore,” Sherlock was saying, a taut mantra of quiet words in his ear. “You're not in Afghanistan, you're in London, with me. You're safe, John.”

John blinked, his heart hammering and breath coming in too-fast gulps, and he looked away from the Witness and the dead audience, faced Sherlock. Encouraged by this, Sherlock babbled faster, his arms changing position until his hands were braced on John's shoulders.

“John, can you hear me?” He gave John a single, careful shake. “John, you need to come back.”

John stared glossily at him, at his aura, in awe of the colors and the magnificent lifeforce behind them. Yet there was no stopping now –

(He must uphold the Balance.)

“But they need me,” he distantly heard himself say, barely recognizing his own voice.

Sherlock leaned in close to catch the words that fit between gasps, so soft they might have passed for breath as well. In an equally hushed, urgent tone, he replied, “ _I_ need you more.”

Inside John, that nexus of dark, cool power grew stronger, inexorable. He couldn't contain it much longer, not even for Sherlock.

“I must save them,” he whispered resolutely.

“John, you can't, they're not _real_ – ”

“But I can... hear them,” John said, willing Sherlock to understand. They _were_ real, and he heard them, saw them, felt the unnatural heaviness of them. He had to (help them) restore the Balance; this was his only option, now.

“John, hear _me_ , listen to me –”

Now, it had to happen now. John already felt himself slipping outwards and upwards and downwards all at once. It ought to be overwhelming, but John only felt serenity. Something warm and wet slid down across his lips, and when he licked them he tasted blood and electricity.

 

*

 

And John-the-crow screamed a final time, banking into a sharp declining turn. The sound was drowned out by a simultaneous crack of thunder which no lightning heralded because –

 _He_ was the lightning, splitting the air with the force of his power –

And he was the thunder. He rumbled the sky and shook the ground – 

And nothing was secret. He knew every mote of dust gathered in every forgotten grave, and every wisp of spirit lingering, and every life glowing in the whole cemetery. He felt the Balance, and himself and everything upon it so much dew on spidersilk –

And he plucked a string, tipped the scales farther, creating a vast chasm into the great beyond. 

He did not need words, not like when he was contained in his mortal body, because he existed in the space where the instinct was purer than any language could communicate. He opened the door, and a rush of something like wind and something like gravity drew the dead spirits inside – a harvest of all the lost and forsaken, gathering them home. 

Most went willingly, some joyfully, their souls slipping through his like shooting stars. A few gnashed their teeth and clawed the air, trying to cling to the realm of Life. Though the latter went down like a curdled shot and left John with the same queasy feeling, it did not matter; the Balance took them all just the same.

He did not know how long the process took, but eventually the crowd dwindled until only the living remained amongst the headstones and greenery. But a knot of energy swelled in his breast, and he screamed his strident cry again to release it.

Another peal of thunder shuddered through his bones. Where the first had opened the portal into Death, this one struck a dizzying chord of connection to Life, purifying. John felt part of himself raveling and interlacing, like greedy roots delving and spreading and claiming. The ground... changed. If the the cemetery had seemed like a beacon of peace before, it was now a bastion, pure and clear and something John recognized as _home_.

Yes. Of course. Just as the crows were his, so too was the cemetery.

The ancient yew trees sighed as John finally circled in to land among their boughs. His flock trickled in after him, chattering to themselves in what John thought a self-congratulatory way.

The tree stood a few yards away from the open grave, which had become a hotbed of activity as the crime-scene investigators took over. Mr. Haw was nowhere to be seen. Beneath the tree, Lestrade smoked a cigarette, and John's body propped in a sitting position against the trunk. Sherlock was crouched next to him, using a wadded tissue to swab at the red stains running from John's nose to his chin. All three men were liberally streaked with mud and grass-stains, obviously from when the pair hauled John out of the grave.

“– Just so damn weird,” Lestrade was saying. “Can't really blame him for passing out. I mean, we've all seen some shit, but I never saw _that_ before. ”

Sherlock hummed, turning John's insensate head, inspecting it for any blood he'd missed. (John-the-crow had an odd moment of dual sensation again, fingers firm and gentle on his chin.) A troubled frown marred his brow as he studied John's face, and he pocketed the tissue absently.

“How do you think they managed a live crow inside her body?” Lestrade asked, huffing out a long stream of smoke.

Sherlock stood abruptly, whirling to not only face the man but purloin his cigarette as well. “Too early to theorize,” he stated flatly over Lestrade's – admittedly weak – protestations.

“He, um, didn't bleed on anything down there, did he?” Lestrade asked when it was clear Sherlock wasn't going to add anything else. “Just want to know how pissed off Anderson will be about contaminated evidence.”

Sherlock shook his head and held out the arm not occupied with the cigarette. Lestrade examined the sleeve briefly, his lips twisting in mild disgust at the barely-visible bloodstain in the dark fabric.

“I managed to keep it under control,” Sherlock said, taking a puff. “Shouldn't be a problem.”

There was a long silence as Lestrade sighed and took out another cigarette for himself and lit it. Eventually, he asked, “Speaking of oddities, have you ever seen John do that before? A full-on flashback like that?”

“No,” Sherlock said. He glanced back at John's body, the troubled expression intensifying.

“It's got to have something to do with this case,” Lestrade declared. When Sherlock looked at him, he elaborated, “He had that... moment yesterday, too. When he 'remembered' something. And now today he goes back to the front lines, if only in his head. Now, I'm no shrink, but that tells me there's got to be a trigger for him in all this.”

Sherlock grimaced. “What are you driving at?”

Lestrade sighed and held his hands up. “I just wonder how good an idea it is to let him...” He trailed off, looking John up and down, before he added, “Maybe he ought to sit this one out.”

John-the-crow couldn't help but give an outraged squawk at that. He wasn't having PTSD flashbacks, and he certainly wasn't about to let himself be sidelined in this investigation – certainly not now that he knew for certain that Abby had been telling the truth and this whole thing was the work of some other necromancer.

The noise drew both men's attention, however. Lestrade paled just a bit when he spotted John in the tree, and he looked away. Sherlock, however, peered up steadily, his thinking face smoothing the frown lines away. John tried to appear as birdlike as he knew how – which wasn't saying much. He edged down the branch a bit towards more dense foliage, but Sherlock's gaze followed him.

“You... may have a point,” he admitted with the utmost reluctance. “But let me discuss it with him. And I make no promises – his expertise may yet be vital to my process.”

Lestrade persisted, “If he's becoming... less than stable, it isn't a good idea to have him along. Neither for the investigation, nor his state of mind. You saw how he was down there –”

“Yes, much better than you did,” Sherlock snapped, finally looking away from John-the-crow to glare at the DI.

“Look,” Lestrade said firmly in his take-charge-policeman voice. “I respect John as a professional and consider him a mate of mine, too. Lord knows that _you_ are a whole lot more pleasant to be around when he's here, but if he isn't able to be detached right now –”

Sherlock whirled on Lestrade and snarled, “ _I will discuss it with him._ Or were you not listening when I just said that a moment ago? Unless I have more data, there's nothing to be done about it, so until then I suggest you cease your prattle and allow me time to _think_!” Just as abrupt as this outburst, he turned again, stalking back a few paces to look at John's slumped form at the foot of the tree. “He ought to have woken by now, don't you think? John, come on, we're beset on all sides by idiots, it's time to get up.”

Lestrade rolled his eyes and went to lean on the treetrunk on the opposite side of John's body. He did cast a suspicious gaze upward, and John-the-crow ducked out of the man's direct line of sight.

“He'll come around soon,” Lestrade said. “If you want, I can still call that ambulance. I mean, that nosebleed business seemed a bit dodgy, didn't it?”

Sherlock actually seemed to hesitate uncertainly at that, and then he knelt down beside John's body again and began to gently shake his shoulder. “John. John, wake up.”

John (could feel the hand on his shoulder, grip not desperate... not yet, but the tension was there, ready to rise) agreed that it was time to wake up. Lestrade and his PTSD theory were bad enough on their own, but speculation on John's spontaneous nosebleed could lead Sherlock to perform likely obnoxious and fruitless tests for anything from allergies to brain cancer.

Right. So, how did he get back in his own body?

“John,” Sherlock repeated more loudly.

“You're worried about him,” Lestrade observed, sounding – in John's opinion – unduly surprised.

Sherlock froze (John could feel the man's fingers tightening their grip, and he concentrated on it, using the point of contact be the map that would guide him back, but the way was dark and one wrong step would... leave him...) but he only said, “John, wake up.”

“Never thought I'd see the day. Sherlock Holmes, worried. Sherlock Holmes, _concerned_ for a friend,” Lestrade proclaimed, only half-teasing.

“Shut up,” Sherlock muttered.

“He _must_ be a bit off lately, if he's got you in such a state,” Lestrade said. “What aren't you telling me?”

“God! Nothing, just –”

(Vexed vibrations reverberated from Sherlock through to John, a flare of light that shined at the long end of the dark chasm between John-the-crow and John-the-man – aha! John dove towards it, flowing down and in and back towards himself –)

 

*

 

And John opened his eyes.

“ – _shut up_!” Sherlock finished, hovering above John, but his face was turned to Lestrade, his posture at once protective and defensive. The line of his jaw and the tendons in his neck were taut with stress.

Huh. That hadn't been apparent from his previous vantage point. John's vision clouded with the second sight of Sherlock's aura, which had gone bright/dark/chaotic in a way that could only confirm that Sherlock was quite upset. He blinked, but he could still see it, even with his eyes closed.

“Yeah,” John drawled groggily. “Some 'f us 'r try'na sleep.”

“John!” Sherlock's colors spiked gold as he whirled to face him, and John blinked again, his eyelids feeling sluggish, not quite working in tandem. Sherlock's hands found his shoulders and squeezed. “Finally.”

“Welcome back to the world of the living,” Lestrade said, relief in his smile and the way his posture drooped. He took a drag from his dwindling smoke. “Gave us a bit of a fright, you did.”

“S'rry,” John said, tongue thick and uncooperative. “What'd I miss?”

“You fainted,” Sherlock supplied.

“Bollocks,” John sighed, closing his eyes and tilting his head back against the tree. He was never going to hear the end of this one, he was sure.

Back in his physical body, he realized two things. One was that was he was covered almost head to toe in mud and leaves, soaked through in places from the rain still dampening the grass. The other was that, in spite of the whole situation, he felt almost high, due to equal parts exhaustion and inexplicable euphoria. He felt... light. (Abuzz with the strange aether of his power, twined into the very heart of the cemetery's. Symbiosis, balance, _mine_...) He had to clamp his teeth together to keep a giggle from crawling up his throat.

Lestrade said, unable to keep the smugness of one who has never fainted out of his tone completely,“You weren't the only one, if it makes you feel better. That Haw, he went down for the count, too.” 

“You hyperventilated. What do you remember?” Sherlock asked, leaning in quite close, his expression not his average intense curiosity, something else lurking in the tension around his eyes and mouth. He brought the cigarette in close for another drag, smoked almost down to the filter by now.

“That bird,” John replied, knowing from his eavesdropping that _that_ at least hadn't been a subjective experience. Had they seen its worm-eaten appearance, or just a regular crow? Certainly they'd be talking about it more if they'd seen how un-living the thing was. He blinked again, feeling a bit more in tune with his physical body again. “That goddamned bird.”

The glowing red cherry of Sherlock's cigarette distracted him, and he raised his hand to intercept Sherlock's, catching the man's wrist. It was the detective's turn to blink as John swiped the filter and brought it to his own lips.

The drag was harsh and bracing, and exactly what he needed. He'd never been a smoker, but he'd had a few after stressful incidents – mostly in Afghanistan, because alcoholic drinks were contraband there and much harder to come by. Tobacco was not his favorite means by far, but sometimes a bloke just needed to take the edge off with something.

Still, it'd been a couple years since he'd last smoked anything. His throat and lungs itched. The sensation helped to ground him; he didn't cough. John exhaled a cloud to be taken by the breeze. He stubbed the butt out in the ground, and when he looked up, Sherlock was watching him closely, an unreadable expression on his face.

John rolled his eyes. He said, “Just 'cause you hauled me out of an open grave doesn't mean I can't still have a coffin nail.”

Sherlock raised an eyebrow. “And here I had you pegged as more a cremation kind of man.”

“Yeah, well, then I _urned_ it,” John replied, unable to keep the lopsided smile from his face when Lestrade groaned.

“You don't smoke,” Sherlock said, eyes narrowing.

John shrugged. “Seemed the thing to do.”

“You have smoked before – but only under stress. Afghanistan,” Sherlock went on, deducing with accurate alacrity. He stood suddenly, offering John a hand, and John took it, letting Sherlock lever him up to his feet. “You had a flashback. Do you remember?”

John felt his smile slip away and he nodded. It rankled to lie, especially since he'd worked very hard to never let his actual PTSD advance to flashbacks in the first place. How sad were his options that lying about having a flashback was the only thing that would make him sound _less_ crazy?

“John,” Lestrade began awkwardly, “about the case –”

John's mobile rang, and he clamped down on the urge to startle. He pulled the phone from his pocket and answered.

“Hello?”

“John!” Molly exclaimed in his ear, relief making her voice sharp. It instantly transformed into consternation as she demanded, “What did you do?”

He glanced at Sherlock, who was watching him closely still. Shit. He still had to act his little farce. He attempted to muster enough false brightness to cover a fair amount of trepidation when he said, “Oh, Molly, hi! Well, I'm just here with Sherlock and Lestrade, working on that case from earlier. Um. What are you up to?”

“If they're listening, then just shut up,” Molly told him, then stumbled a bit, “That is, um, don't say anything. Look, whatever you did, I felt it clear across town. We've got to move up plans for the evening.”

“What? But I –”

“Unless you're still dropping psychic bombs, you can skip it,” Molly asserted, then added awkwardly, “Please. I'm using my sick leave for the rest of my shift at Bart's. I'm texting you my address, get a cab, and meet me there as soon as humanly possible.”

“Okay, sure,” John agreed, brow knotting perplexedly. He turned his back to his companions, trying not to broadcast his burgeoning uneasiness. He hazarded a loaded question, “It's really that bad that you had to go home sick?”

“Remember what I tried to tell you, about... about the things out there,” Molly said, and the note of panic just under her words gleamed through. “Well, whatever you did, anyone who can feel these things almost certainly felt _that_ , and God only knows how far you broadcast it. Might as well have a target painted on your back.”

“Sounds serious,” John said, icewater trickling into his veins beneath the insulation of his unearthly good humor. “Well, perhaps I'd best pop on by, then.”

“All right. Hurry,” she replied, urgency a bit mollified. “I'll put the kettle on.”

“Okay.” He glanced over his shoulder at the nonplussed Sherlock and Lestrade – wearing oddly identical expressions – and then away again. “See you soon. Bye.”

He rang off and pocketed his phone again before turning around.

“Well, Molly's taken poorly, had to leave work and asked if I'd come 'round for – a checkup,” John said, and it sounded like a flimsy excuse even to his own ears.

But a flimsy excuse for _what_ , he left up to the imagination.

“Making a house-call, doctor?” Sherlock asked with a transparent veil of innocence. “Funny that she should feel sick; she seemed rather lively when we were there an hour ago.”

“Er, I suppose so –”

“I apologize for the interruption earlier, by the way,” Sherlock said, clearly playacting in that horribly believable way of his. He even put a bit of sneer into, “If I'd known, I would have given you lovebirds a wide berth.”

Lestrade's mouth opened but it was a moment before sound emerged. “O-oh. Lovebirds?” He turned a far-too-nonchalant gaze at John, raising his brows skeptically. “You and – Molly? Since when?”

“Well. Tonight was supposed to be our first date,” John replied, avoiding his glance. There were reasons people didn't do this crap in real life, that being, it's actually kind of a shitty thing to do. He could practically see Lestrade's hope crushing before his eyes (silver-sheened piping notes distorting and losing their gloss) and he felt like a heel. 

Too late to take any of it back now, though. Please, let daytime telly be right about this matchmaking lark. He cleared his throat. “Anyway, I've got to get going. She sounded... rather... peaky. Um. Is there a way to get a cab out here?”

“They wouldn't take you, looking all muddy and bloody like that,” Sherlock declared as if he knew from experience, which he most likely did. “Lestrade, can you spare a car and officer to drive John home?”

“Right. Right, um. I'll radio it in,” Lestrade said, but he just stared at John for another moment. “You and Molly, seriously?”

“Yeah, just, um, decided to give it a go. I mean, why not? ” John replied, reaching his limits for lying on so many fronts at the same time. He scraped together a muttered, “She's... sweet. And she knows Sherlock already, so it'll be harder for him to scare her off.”

Sherlock snorted but said nothing. John's text alert gave a damningly cheerful chime.

Lestrade's expression darkened but he quickly drew himself up in a professional manner and gave the order to have a car readied for John. He held John's gaze, and after another moment, he said through a forced smile and a tight jaw, “Well. Best of luck to you both, I suppose. I have to be getting back to the scene, though. Rest up, mate, and tell Molly get well soon from me.”

He clapped his hand on John's shoulder as he walked past, heading back towards the grave. John tried not to sag in relief the moment he was gone.

Sherlock chuckled, saying, “That went according to plan, at least. Did you arrange for her to call you away?”

“No, she really did go home sick.” John began to walk slowly toward the cordon, where the car would be waiting, as per usual when he got carted around in the backseat of a police car. Sherlock kept pace with him. John felt his gaze but refused to meet it. He had a feeling he was acting decidedly odd, but he still felt so _good_ – even after that harrowing conversation. He knew it couldn't be natural. If it was a feeling tied to the cemetery, he'd find out when he left it.

“Does that mean she really wants your medical expertise?”

“I assume so, yes. Probably food poisoning. I'll just go look in on her,” John said. “Let her know that I think Lestrade took the bait.”

Sherlock _hmm_ ed. “Is that wise? Considering... Well, you were trying to sleep, not too long ago.”

John was quiet a long moment, eying the crime-scene investigators milling purposefully about the rows and rows of headstones between the lane and the plot, scurrying along in their blue coveralls. They were trying not to stare at him as the two of them walked past the perimeter. No doubt they all had heard of his apparent meltdown in the grave and were waiting to see what he did next. 

So, in one fell swoop, he'd lost the comparative esteem of the Met, had Lestrade all but kick him off the case, and now Sherlock bloody Holmes began casting aspersions on his ability as a doctor. This was the reason John _hated_ his excuse. He didn't need _Sherlock Holmes_ , of all people, looking at him like he was some kind of fine china plate with a crack down the front and chips in the rim. Like he was _damaged_. That kind of treatment was why he'd slid so far into depression upon his return the civilian life.

For the space of a mad breath, John wanted to just give up and confess, because he had proof, didn't he? He could raise a zombie – well, they were in the right place for that, weren't they? – and prove to Sherlock he wasn't insane, and tell him all the weird things that had happened to him in the last two days. Sherlock would believe him – would _have_ to believe him.

But the fallout of such a revelation... No. He had too much to freak-the-fuck-out about now, and besides, he couldn't speak freely in earshot of the police if he wanted to salvage any dignity and credence as an expert.

John sighed, weary and strained. “The PTSD only made me unfit to be a surgeon, you know. And I'd rather... be useful. I can do this.”

He met Sherlock's eyes as he finished. Sherlock studied him for a moment, finally nodding. John gave a small, grateful smile, and Sherlock's eyes did that thing where they suddenly warmed from within, (and fine filaments of gold hung between them, he knew because in this moment he could hear them humming).

“I understand,” Sherlock said as they finally drew up to the lane. To their left, a uniformed officer next to a panda car waved them over. He hesitated and out of the side of his mouth he added, “But – do get some rest for yourself.”

“I intend to,” John told him, wholeheartedly. “A shower is necessary. As is tea.”

Sherlock went on in a less private tone, “Meanwhile, I've loose ends to wrap up here. There's still the staff and family to interview, and I need to examine the body again, before the autopsy.”

They'd reached the car. The officer opened the back seat door for John. Bracing it open himself with a nod of thanks, he asked, honestly curious, “Do you have any ideas yet, Sherlock?”

“Too many, all too much conjecture,” Sherlock waved an impatient hand. “I need more data. Something solid to go on.”

“Something'll turn up,” John said.

“It had better. I find myself completely bored with this case already,” Sherlock said, which, despite such convincing petulance, John knew was an obvious lie. “I intend to make quick work of it.”

“Keep me posted, yeah?” John said by way of farewell.

“Of course,” Sherlock replied.

And John slipped into the car, and Sherlock slipped into the crowd. The officer up in the front seat asked through the barrier, “Where we headed, Dr. Watson?”

John dug his phone from his pocket and checked Molly's message. He dutifully repeated the address, and the car pulled away. After a moment he took a deep, trembling breath and leaned his head against the cold glass of the window.

He didn't need to look behind them to know that a murder of crows flew after them, thirteen pairs of sooty wings against a darkening, leaden sky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do hope the tone of this chapter fits with the others. Let me know if you think something's amiss. Or if you liked it. :D
> 
> I was shocked when I logged back in to post this chapter and saw that you lovely readers have given this fic over 10,000 hits, and that's just epic. <333 Thanks so much for reading, folks!


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